Chapter Twenty-Three: Uzer
"Azzanadra? The Azzanadra?" Paladin Anesti could hardly believe his ears as he listened to Athellenas tell him who was going to defeat Thammaron. "Are you insane?"
"I must be," Warmaster Athellenas murmured. He spurred Onyx a little to get his speed back up. The 1st Element of the Centralian Army had been on the move for three days. It had taken a full day to get everyone and everything over the bridge Azzanadra had risen over the Elid River. The next two days had been nothing but marching, marching, and more marching. There had absolutely nothing out in this part of the desert just east of the Elid but sand and dunes, as well as the occasional cactus or lizard.
Today was day four after the crossing of the Elid, and the desert was finally beginning to yield some changes. They must have been getting close to the ocean, because more and more vegetation was beginning to pop up, and the air was tasting a tad bit salty. There was also a pillar of black smoke rising up from the distance. That was good and bad; good because it meant the Centralians were close to Uzer…and bad because the smoke was Uzer. The Menaphite capital was burning.
"Are you sure it's a good idea? Trusting someone…something like Azzanadra?"
Athellenas shrugged. "Doesn't matter if it's a good idea; it's our only idea. We both know what the alternative is: going into the city ourselves and dying. Sure, Azzanadra may not be the most trustworthy character…but he's offering us a pretty good deal. All we do is bust open the walls and he goes in and completely trashes everything inside."
"Who is Azzanadra?" Sir Derren finally interrupted, tired of hearing the two older men go on about something he didn't know. The name 'Azzanadra' did strike a somewhat familiar chord with him…but he couldn't quite remember who it was.
"Who is Azzanadra?" Anesti echoed, his voice almost high-pitched with disbelief. "You don't know who Azzanadra is?"
"Would I have asked if I did?"
Athellenas spoke up before Sir Derren and Anesti got riled up at each other too badly. "Azzanadra was the champion of Zaros."
"Zaros?" Sir Derren asked again for clarification. "The Empty Lord?"
"Mm-hm," Athellenas nodded. "When Zamorak overthrew Zaros, four thousand or so years ago, this War was sparked. For centuries, millennia after Zaros's disappearance, warriors of both Saradominist and Zamorackian forces—including us—have been fighting against and eradicating the last of Zaros's armies…and we weren't completely successful. Even today, remnants of the old Zarosian Empire still remain… Under the command of Zaros in that time were the Mahjarrat—a race of nearly immortal warriors. The Mahjarrat were easily the most powerful warriors and mages in all of Gielinor, with the exception of the Gods themselves. Fearsome fighters, they were…I don't think they ever lost a battle they participated in. It's no small wonder that Zaros, with the Mahjarrat under his command, was able to forge the largest empire this land has ever seen. When Zamorak betrayed Zaros, the Mahjarrat were divided in a civil war…Azzanadra led the loyalists against Zamorak's rebellion."
"So, Azzanadra was the champion of the Zarosian Armies…which we have been hunting down and destroying for over four thousand years?" Sir Derren hesitated. "And…he's going to…help us?"
"And therein lies the reason for the Paladin's agitation," Athellenas declared, impressed that his subordinate had caught on so fast. "Strange as our alliance may seem, Azzanadra is less of an enemy to us than he is to Zamorak. Having a common enemy can unite the most unlikely individuals…"
"The enemy of my enemy…" the Paladin began, waiting for Sir Derren to answer.
"…is my friend," the young knight finished. Nevertheless, Sir Derren shrugged and said, "I still don't trust him."
"Oh, Gods above, neither do I," Athellenas chuckled. "There is a difference between an ally and a friend. Azzanadra is an ally…not a friend. But regardless…we may not trust him, but we do need him."
"Do the men know?"
Athellenas shook his head no. "They know that they need to breach the walls. Nothing more. Now, why don't you ride on back and inform the generals to start getting the legions into formation? We are getting close."
Warmaster Athellenas gazed down upon what was about to be the next battlefield that the 1st Element would clash with Thammaron's hordes. This was different from all the other times, however. This wasn't Iunu, this wasn't Shantay Pass…this was Uzer. And he was not facing some nameless demon commander, he wasn't facing the five-tailed demon…he was facing the elder-demon Thammaron himself.
The Warmaster was flanked on both sides by Sir Brezhnov, his artillery commander, and Sir Havarell, the cavalry commander. The three of them observed the expanse of land in between the knoll on which they stood and the great walls of Uzer, a distance of about a kilometer. The Menaphite capital stood near the coast of the Great Ocean. The coast itself was still a good distance away, but the area the city was located in was…well, it wasn't completely desert anymore.
While most of the Menaphite Empire comprised primarily of sand dunes and wastelands, this particular neck of the proverbial woods was more of a savannah than anything else. The sand had gradually firmed up into solid earth, and there was even yellow and light green grass waving in the wind.
Athellenas was glad to have left the heart of the desert behind him, if only temporarily. Though it was by no means any cooler in this part of the Menaphite Empire, it still felt nice to walk across solid land instead of the constantly shifting dunes.
"For a grand capital, that city isn't exactly built for ideal defense…" Sir Brezhnov muttered. "Sure, it's got some nice walls…but it is at the bottom of a gradual incline. That positioning…the city is just begging to have artillery rained down from these heights."
"I don't think Uzer has ever come under attack, before," Athellenas shrugged. "It matters not. All we have to do is breach the walls, not wonder why the city was built where it was."
Uzer was an extremely large city. The sprawl of dwellings and buildings stretched out as far as the eye could see—which wasn't all that far, but far enough to put the Menaphite capital's size into perspective. It also wasn't just a flat expanse surrounded by walls, like most cities were. The Warmaster could see grand pyramids, temples, and parts of the city that were built on top of hills and plateaus that were elevated above the rest of the sprawl. It was definitely not a normal city.
Tethys, the capital of Centralia, had its inner city and palace built on a similar, man-made hill…but the city itself was nowhere near as opulent as Uzer was. Or rather, as Uzer had been.
Large chunks of those pyramids and temples were missing, and the entire city was pockmarked and blackened. Almost every visible building had either been torn to pieces, or was heavily damaged. A few were still on fire. The sky was a hazy gray, obscuring most of the sun; huge columns of smoke were still gushing into the sky from the destruction Thammaron's hordes had wreaked upon the city. Because of the walls, the Centralian soldiers could only see the tops of the buildings, not the actual streets…but the damage was still pretty evident.
The hundreds of thousands of monsters that were behind the city walls weren't visible, either…but Athellenas could hear the inhuman cries of the filth that had destroyed Uzer, even from the distance away that the 1st Element currently was.
As Athellenas watched, an organized phalanx of some ten thousand foot soldiers was marching into position, ready to begin the assault on the walls of Uzer the moment Athellenas gave the command. Athellenas had General Dhalit's X Legion leading the assault, giving Sinclair's IV Legion a much-deserved break. The IV and I Legions were on the X Legion's flanks.
As Athellenas studied the legions' progress, he observed the walls of Uzer through his spyglass. Hundreds, thousands of goblin archers were visible on the ramparts, intermingled with dark mages and smaller demons. Breaching the walls would not be bloodless for the 1st Element.
Athellenas sucked in a breath between his teeth as he looked at the ramparts. "This is going to be a tough one…" the Warmaster murmured.
"I have faith that you shall prevail," a stranger's voice suddenly said from behind. Athellenas, Brezhnov, and Havarell whipped around to suddenly come face to face with a thin, red-haired man with crimson eyes and a trimmed beard. He had come out of nowhere.
Sir Brezhnov immediately made a grab for his sword, but Athellenas stopped him. "He's with us," the Warmaster assured his artillery commander.
Azzanadra inclined his head in a slight nod, a faint grin flashing across his face. "I can feel Thammaron's presence…the elder-demon is here…my, he is powerful."
"You can defeat him, right?" Athellenas asked the Zarosian Mahjarrat.
Azzanadra's brow furrowed in a slight frown; his only outward reaction to Athellenas's query. "I like you, Warmaster, so I shall pretend you did not ask me that. Zamorak's lieutenant is a powerful demon, indeed…but he is not Mahjarrat."
Athellenas shrugged. "He is your prey, not mine. I ask only because you know I have decided to trust you…I do not want to see my entire army die in this place."
"If ever you witness such a thing, it will not happen here," Azzanadra assured the Centralian Warmaster cryptically. "Perhaps sometime in the future, at the walls of another city…but not here."
Dark as Azzanadra's tone was, and much as Athellenas wanted to disagree, the Warmaster could find nothing flawed with the Mahjarrat's reasoning; the future of Centralia was very, very uncertain. If the Menaphite Empire had fallen in such a short time…
Athellenas quickly shook his head, casting those thoughts from his mind. The Qarat was composed of fierce fighters…but it was disorganized and inefficient. The Centralian Army would be able to repel whatever Zamorak threw at it…at least, Athellenas hoped it would.
"Sir Brezhnov," Athellenas turned to his artillery commander. "The moment your men finish erecting the trebuchets, I want you to unleash hell on those walls. Sir Havarell, I want you to muster your mounted archers; send them in for a quick sweep right after the first barrage. Let's try to soften the bastards up a little bit."
"Warmaster," the two veteran knight commanders clasped their fists to their hearts in a respectful salute and departed, heading down into the fray of the preparing legions.
"You know why Thammaron's hordes haven't moved on?" Athellenas finally asked Azzanadra after a few minutes of silent observation. "They've already burned Uzer; you'd think they would start heading south. I hear Menaphite survivors have congregated at Sophanem."
"He's waiting for you, of course," Azzanadra chuckled. "For a bunch of mortal humans, your army is quite an effective fighting force. Certainly not a force to be brushed aside and ignored…and potentially a force that could cause him and Zamorak a good deal of trouble later in the future. He waits until he has destroyed you, for your kingdom's armies are the only main thing standing between Zamorak and the rest of the world."
"Oh, he's holding his party for me?" the Warmaster grumbled, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm flattered."
Azzanadra's lips parted in a cold smile, displaying snow-white teeth. "Take great care, Warmaster. Thammaron knows of your accomplishments as of late. He knows that you are responsible for the death of the five-tailed demon, as well as the destruction of all of his rearguard forces. He is thirsty for your blood."
The roar of Sir Brezhnov's opening barrage shook the earth. Over a dozen flaming projectiles arced through the sky, leaving trails of dark smoke behind them. They started to sail into the great wall of Uzer, tearing out good-sized chunks of masonry. Athellenas smiled as he watched countless goblins and orks get obliterated by the explosions. The accuracy Sir Brezhnov managed to coax out of his clunky trebuchets was uncanny.
Athellenas did not like his location. He would rather be at the fore of the assault, where Sir Derren currently was…but in a battle as important as this one, he would have to be in a vantage point where he could see the entire battle and react appropriately to any counterattacks the enemy might make; something he couldn't do if he was in the thick of things.
Azzanadra noticed the Warmaster keeping himself in check and gave a faint ghost of a smile. The man was warrior, through and through…something the Zarosian Mahjarrat could relate to.
More of the fireballs crashed into the walls, but they were holding firm. Athellenas hadn't expected the trebuchets to be able to break the walls on their own, anyway. That was the job of the battering ram teams, as well as the long-range mortar cannon.
As Athellenas watched, he could see Sir Havarell's cavalry archers sweeping in around from the legions' right flank, riding in splayed formation parallel to the walls. It was a sight to see—men riding hard, their steeds galloping along at full clip, drawing and firing arrows up into the ramparts. How they managed to stay so accurate despite their rapid movement, Athellenas would never know; the Warmaster was no archer.
The mounted archers took casualties—it was impossible to ride along ramparts filled with thousands of goblin archers and not lose anyone. The archers also inflicted losses on the goblins. Probably not enough to even put a dent in their strength…but what they succeeded at was causing chaos on the ramparts.
The gates of Uzer were the weakest part of the walls, and therefore Athellenas's target. Even now, he had three teams of men among the legions who were operating carefully-constructed battering ram units which would be more than sufficient to bring them down. Sir Brezhnov had been reluctant to bring the long-range mortar out behind its defenses—which would be necessary for it to be within range of Uzer's gate. Athellenas agreed—that mortar was irreplaceable.
The cavalry archers completed their circuit just as Sir Brezhnov sent another barrage the city's way. The ground shook again as the fury of the Fremmenik artillery commander's trebuchets broke upon the walls.
Just as planned, a piercing note from a signaling horn rolled across the plain. The legions, now spread out in a winged formation, started to move forward towards the city. The remaining monsters on the walls beat their weapons and shields, creating a loud, booming noise that, combined with their bloodthirsty shrieks, sounded almost like distant thunder.
The Warmaster kept a close eye on the three battering rams. He sincerely hoped nothing would befall them; the men who were operating the rams had all volunteered for the duty. They didn't deserve to meet their ends, no matter how much they were prepared to. The same went for the rest of the army…but regardless of whether or not they deserved it, it still happened.
Spearmen formed the first ranks of the advance, locking shields in a semi-impenetrable wall which arrows bounced off of. Many arrows simply sailed right over the first ranks, catching unfortunate legionnaires who had no way of deflecting them. There were spontaneous bursts of wind as battlemages attempted to stop the hail of arrows coming down from the ramparts, but they were only partially successful. Most of the arrows were stopped by the shield wall, even more by the battlemages' efforts…but the small remainder still amounted to a large number.
Athellenas gritted his teeth in frustration as he watched soldiers fall, felled by the goblin arrows. The scowl was softened to a grimace when he saw the Centralian archers begin to return fire, felling dozens more of the goblins.
To put things into perspective, the assault was not occurring just at the gate—the three legions of Athellenas's 1st Element were attacking a long portion of the walls, over a mile long, maybe two. This was a concentrated assault, but it was not a small one.
"Why do they not come out and destroy us?" Athellenas wondered aloud as he watched the progress of his men. "Surely they would succeed if they committed…"
"Thammaron knows that you have come to try to destroy him. You are on the offensive…so he waits for you to meet him inside the city. He knows you cannot keep your army out here in the desert for too long, while he has nearly unlimited supplies from the Menaphite capital. Were it not for me, you would have no choice but to invade Uzer itself," Azzanadra explained matter-of-factly. "He does little more than send archers against you now because he knows that your army will stand much less of a chance inside the city…so why waste any of his warriors?"
"Doesn't sound much like a demon…" Athellenas grunted, returning his gaze to his spyglass. "They care nothing for the hordes under their command."
"Thammaron is not most demons," Azzanadra countered. "Saying he cares for his filth would be a step too far…but he is a smart individual. He wants to keep as much of his horde alive as possible. That will make the eventual battles that will eventually occur in your home kingdom much easier for him."
"There will not be any battles in Centralia," Athellenas asserted sharply. That was one subject he would not broach. "We will repel all of Zamorak's filth before they can set a single tainted foot on the soil of my lands."
All Azzanadra gave in reply was a somewhat amused chuckle, which unnerved Athellenas to a degree. The Warmaster decided not to think on such things right now. There was a battle to be won, first.
Sir Brezhnov's artillery continued to rain fire and hell on the city of Uzer, but the fireballs were now fired well over the wall and into the city itself. It was getting too dangerous to attack the wall with the legions so close.
The ram teams had reached the walls and were beginning to move them towards the massive sealed doors of Uzer's gate. "So why were you not able to get into the city yourself?" the Warmaster asked the Mahjarrat. "I remember you mentioning enchantments carved into the walls…but I can't see anything unusual."
"No, you cannot," Azzanadra confirmed. "Your mages would call them 'Enochian sigils'. No other race has a name for them. No one knows who made or discovered them, or just how old they are…but they are extremely powerful forms of magic that can ward off certain…things."
Athellenas raised an eyebrow, waiting for the Mahjarrat to continue.
"I do not know the full powers of Enochian sigils, but one thing they can do, if performed correctly and in a certain way, is ward off members of my race."
Athellenas snorted. "So you're saying Thammaron basically Mahjarrat-proofed Uzer's walls?"
"That is a crude way of putting it…but yes," Azzanadra nodded. "I am unable to cross the threshold of the walls; it would be like-"
The Zarosian Mahjarrat suddenly paused, tilting his head up and closing his eyes. He drew in a sharp breath and his nostrils flared, as if he were sniffing something out. "He knows…" he murmured.
"Everything alright, there?"
Azzanadra's eyes shot open. "Pull your men back," he snapped suddenly. "Pull them back!"
"What are you talking about? They're about to-"
"Thammaron has learned of my presence," Azzanadra said to the Warmaster. "I sensed the sudden shift…the elder-demon has become extremely agitated. He knows that if the walls go down, I can get in…your men are in incredible danger right now. Pull them back."
Athellenas swore, knowing exactly what the Mahjarrat was getting at. If Thammaron knew that Azzanadra could get into the city once the walls were breached, then he would do everything in his power to prevent said walls from falling…which meant removing all threats to the integrity of that wall, which were the battering rams.
"Sound the retreat!" Athellenas bellowed to one of his aides. "Quickly!"
The aide raised a horn to his lips and blew a quick procession of three notes, sounding the signal for full retreat. The legions gradually stopped their advance and seemed to mill about in confusion for a few moments, obviously unsure of the validity of the order. After all, why would Athellenas ask them to abandon the assault when they were so close?
Athellenas swore once more. "Sound it again!" The three notes of the retreat signal echoed across the fields. "Come on, Derren… Turn them around…" he murmured through clenched teeth.
Thankfully, the second retreat signal cleared away the initial confusion. The legions didn't completely turn around, they simply started walking backwards. This was standard procedure—you never, ever present your back to an enemy.
A full minute after the retreat had been sounded, the legions were making fair progress away from the city walls. Doubtless the generals would demand an explanation for the sudden abandoning of the battle plan, but Athellenas could always deal with that. He would not be able to deal with having the generals dead, along with all of their men.
The retreat hadn't started a moment too soon, either. A humongous explosion blew a crater into the ground in front of the gate, creating a giant, thick pillar of smoke. It was so think that Athellenas could not see through it.
A shape leaped out of the smoke. It was a demon, but it was larger than any demon Athellenas had ever seen before. It had to be at least fifty feet tall. It had the usual red skin that most demons possessed, several rows of glinting, hideously sharp teeth, equally deadly looking talons, and two massive horns that curved out from the sides of its head.
"Thammaron…" Athellenas whispered, the sight of Zamorak's most powerful lieutenant filling him with horror and awe. He murmured a quick prayer to Saradomin, but Azzanadra interrupted him with a cynical snort.
"Save your words, Warmaster; your God is not listening," the Mahjarrat scoffed.
As if to prove Azzanadra right, Athellenas watched as Thammaron let out a mighty roar and punched both if his fists out towards the retreating legions. Three bursts of fire shot out from the elder-demon—two from his fists, one from his head—and each one tore through the ranks of spearmen and hit the battering rams.
All three of the rams were disintegrated by the furious flames, as well as anyone unlucky enough to be too close. The agonized screams of burning men made Athellenas's gut twitch painfully.
Just as quickly as he had appeared, Thammaron vanished in another plume of smoke, his job finished. He had removed the 1st Element's ability to destroy the gate…or at least, any ability the 1st Element possessed that he knew about. He didn't know about the mortar cannon.
Athellenas angrily slammed his spyglass into its resting position and slid it into his belt. He stepped over to Azzanadra and grasped the Mahjarrat by the lapel of his red overshirt. "You kill that son of a bitch, Mahjarrat," the Warmaster growled. "You kill him, and when you do…make it slow."
With that, Athellenas turned on his heel and whistled to Onyx, his mount. When the dappled gray and white steed trotted up to him, the Warmaster swung himself up into the saddle, spurring the horse down the back of the knoll and around to the 1st Element's field gunnery defenses, placed around the hospitals.
Azzanadra watched the Warmaster go. When Athellenas vanished around the knoll and out of his view, the Mahjarrat simply sat down cross-legged at the edge of the knoll and waited.
Athellenas returned to the battlements—hastily-dug trenches with wooden staves on their rims—and quickly searched for Sir Brezhnov. The broad-chested, Fremmenik-born artillery commander did not react favorably to Athellenas's desire to deploy the mortar cannon.
"I don't feel good about sending out the mortar," Sir Brezhnov murmured in protest. "That's putting it out in the open, and that baby is hard to fix when it gets nicked."
"It's our only option," Athellenas sighed. "Thammaron just cooked our battering rams. We've got nothing left to break those gates except our fists. And that mortar."
"Alright…" Sir Brezhnov still didn't sound happy, but he had just gotten orders from his Warmaster, so he had no choice but to obey.
The legions were spilling back into the defenses when Sir Brezhnov started getting the mortar cannon into position. The artillery commander personally manned the mortar, assisted by three of his artillerists. He did the aiming while another man fired and the other two cleaned and loaded it respectively after each shot.
"General Sinclair! General!" Athellenas called over to the IV Legion commander. "Muster your cohorts and establish a defensive line around Sir Brezhnov's mortar. I don't know if Thammaron will send anything after it…but if he does, that mortar needs to be protected. It's our only chance."
Sir Brezhnov's men still continued to keep the trebuchets firing at and around the gate. More and more goblins just kept on replacing the ones the barrages destroyed, but they were unable to actually mount an organized volley of arrows.
"Up ten degrees!" Sir Brezhnov barked. An artillerist turned one of the cranks that controlled the mortar's vertical aiming. There was another on that controlled the mortar's horizontal axis as well, and Sir Brezhnov adjusted that one, too. "Fire!"
Athellenas blinked reflexively as the mortar cannon roared, sending its projectile up into a wide arc. It streaked through the air and came down in front of the gate, blowing a large crater near the one that Thammaron had created.
Sir Brezhnov gave a dissatisfied grunt. "Allers, bring it back down five degrees," he ordered one of his men while the cleaner pushed a large sweep brush down the barrel of the mortar, cleaning out all of the black powder residue. When he was done, the last artillerist jerked a shell down the barrel of the mortar while the gunner primed it.
Meanwhile, General Sinclar and his subordinate centurions had gotten the IV Legion reasonably settled down into a protective semi-circle around the mortar cannon's position. To get within range, the mortar had to be moved a good distance out from the defenses of Athellenas's command knoll. This left it vulnerable to attack…so Athellenas took no chances and ordered an entire legion to surround it.
The X and I Legions, as per usual, secured the IV Legion's flanks, though such ground attacks probably would not occur.
Athellenas flinched again as the mortar cannon fired once more. This time, Sir Brezhnov's aim was true; the shell traveled in a perfect arc up through the sky before slamming down into the masonry on top of the massive gates. A large portion of the stone was blown away, as well as all of the ramparts that could be stood upon in that area.
A rumble of thunder could be heard as the smoke clouds in the sky started to turn pure black, completely blotting out the sun and drowning the desert in a state of nightfall. Crackles of lightning could be seen flitting around the storm clouds, which began to bulge ominously.
The Centralians started to rustle and murmur, extremely unnerved by these unnatural clouds. More thunder rolled through the plains and small lightning bolts flashed over the city.
The mortar fired again, this time scoring a hit directly onto the gates. The great stone and wooden doors trembled as a large hole was blown right through their upper halves. One more hit like that and the rest of the gates would fall.
That was when all hell seemed to break loose. Athellenas's heart dropped to his stomach when he saw dozens of motes of lightning crackling through the clouds, converging on a point directly above where the IV Legion was positioned. Thammaron was going to destroy the mortar with the lightning.
Powerless to stop it, Athellenas watched the combined lightning flash brightly and sear down from the clouds, bombing straight for Sir Brezhnov's mortar. Athellena braced himself for the massive explosion that was bound to be caused by the lightning…but it never came.
The Warmaster watched, astonished, as Paladin Anesti raised his arms and took the full force of the lightning, absorbing it into his body. The Paladin swayed, lightning crackling up and down his body. His skin actually seemed to glow faintly with the sheer power contained in his body.
Anesti's eyes were closed in deep concentration as he made a single, flowing gesture with his arm. He opened his eyes and snapped his right arm straight out. When he did that, the lightning shot out from his fingers, lancing up into the sky, where it dispersed harmlessly. The Paladin swayed in place for a few seconds, then collapsed to the ground, twitching.
Athellenas called for the medics, and a stretcher team quickly got Anesti safely back to a field hospital.
"Bring her down another hair!" Sir Brezhnov bellowed. "Call when ready!"
"Ready, sir!" the loader shouted after he jerked another shell into the barrel of the mortar cannon.
"Fire!"
The gunner pulled the firing lever, igniting the shell, sending it streaking into the gate. This third hit brought the rest of the doors down, but it wasn't enough. The entire wall had to be destroyed—that included the gates and the portion of the wall above the gates. Fortunately, the loss of the actual gates made the gatehouse a lot easier to bring down.
Athellenas pulled his spyglass back out and took a closer look at the gate. To his unease, he could see scores of death knights and what looked like hellhounds pouring from the ruined gates. The death knights were silent, as usual, but the flaming hellish hounds were howling for blood. If that gate didn't come down, blood was what they were going to get.
Vyrewatch—powerful, nigh-unkillable winged vampyres—also soared up over the walls, making a beeline for Sir Brezhnov's position. The IV Legion would be powerless to stop them, as they could simply fly right overhead and land right around the mortar.
Knock it down, Brezhnov… Athellenas pleaded silently. Knock it down…
The next mortar shot hit the gatehouse, blowing off all of its frontal fortifications, laying bare the insides of the structure. Athellenas swore under his breath. There was no way Brezhnov could possibly reload the mortar before the vyrewatch were upon them.
That was when the trebuchets unleashed one last barrage; only instead of hitting a large section of the Uzer walls, all of the flaming projectiles were aimed specifically at the gate. Sir Brezhnov must have ordered his men to target the gates after a certain point…whatever the reason, the trebuchets' aiming at the gatehouse would save the 1st Element.
Normally, trebuchet projectiles were not enough to knock down entire walls, but the gatehouse was weaker than the rest of the walls, and it had already lost most of its support when the gates went down. It simply couldn't stand up to a dozen of the projectiles slamming into it at once.
With one final groan of protest, the gatehouse of Uzer collapsed, crashing to the ground in a pile of ruined masonry and stone. Anything passing through the gates at the time was crushed, but that hardly put a dent in their numbers. More and more monsters simply started streaming over the wreckage.
The vyrewatch howled in anticipation as they swooped down towards the mortar. Athellenas slowly drew his sword, holding it up towards the leading vampyre. The runite glinted blue, reflecting the bright fires burning behind Uzer's walls.
However, just as the vyrewatch were about to land, there was another sudden bright flash. White energy that took on the shape of lightning speared through each of the descending vampyres. The vyrewatch's howls of bloodlust turned to screams of agony as they writhed in midair, trying to escape the hellstorm of energy.
After a second, the vyrewatch were no more. Gone. Vaporized.
A bright white light illuminated the shadows from behind the 1st Element's position. As the field gunneries opened fire on the charging death knights and hellhounds, Athellenas turned around to see Azzanadra standing on the edge of the command knoll, his arms held high above his head.
The Mahjarrat was surrounded by a blinding white aura…almost like a vortex of energy which he was manipulating with his hands and mind. Athellenas looked at the Mahjarrat through the spyglass, his eye watering up with tears as he tried to see through the brightness.
Azzanadra had transformed into…something else. He was no longer a thin, average-sized man with red hair and a red beard. He no longer looked like a traveler who made his living on the roads. The Mahjarrat was now clad in a deep maroon cloak. His hands were pale white, just like they had been when he had been the Stranger, but his face…
He had no face, or even a head. Instead, there was a skull…a flaming skull, with terrifying yellow lights glowing from the eye sockets. He looked like a Lich. Perhaps that was his true form.
More bolts of the white energy shot forth from Azzanadra, lancing into the scores of charging monsters. The death knights and hellhounds stopped dead in their tracks, going into severe convulsions as the white energy tore through them. The storm of Azzanadra's white lightning utterly massacred the charging monsters of Thammaron's horde.
The Mahjarrat then vanished, disappearing in a purple haze of light. The 1st Element stood in utter silence as they saw Azzanadra rematerialize in front of the ruined gate. The Zarosian Mahjarrat strode into the city, vanishing from view once more.
For the next ten or so minutes, howls and screams of dying monsters all too easily reached the ears of the observing Centralians. Blinding white explosions of light lit up the darkened plain as Azzanadra vented his fury on Thammaron's Zamorackian hordes in the city. The Mahjarrat seemed to be everywhere at once—fires were breaking out in all parts of the city.
One of the great pyramids burst into a million pieces, sending debris flying for miles. Some of the shards even made it as far as the 1st Element's lines, though none caused any casualties.
Flashes of red started to clash with the flashes of white. Deep in the heart of Uzer, Thammaron himself must have engaged Azzanadra. The rolling thunder from the duel became so loud that the Centralians had to cover their ears to prevent any permanent damage.
The explosions and flashes of energy became more and more rapid and intense until it looked to Athellenas as if someone had detonated a million fireworks at the exact same time. The sheer speed of the clashes of power started to make the Warmaster's head hurt.
Then the furious flashes of magical energy stopped suddenly, as if someone threw a switch. There was silence for one second…two seconds…three seconds…
Then another clap of thunder, many times louder than the rest, shook the ground and everyone on it to their very cores. Athellenas shielded his eyes, staggering back several steps, trying to look at the Menaphite capital. The ground was shaking like an earthquake…almost as if the Gods themselves were stomping on this part of the land.
There was a titanic explosion of white light off in the distance, in the center of Uzer. The light grew brighter and brighter, and then it suddenly exploded outward, consuming everything in its path.
The world whited out and Athellenas knew no more.