Eldanar’s Chosen 154. A Waterfall of Incandescent Orange

BRETT POV

Fire is not a living thing—Brett knew that—but right now, he felt as though he was wrestling with a rabid, starving beast.

He stood near the edge of the shattered battlents, leaning precariously over the drop, his hands thrust out before him. From his palms roared a continuous, deafening torrent of liquid fla. This wasn't the brief, controlled burst of a standard combat spell. It poured down from the ramparts like a waterfall of incandescent orange, cascading into the horrific bottleneck directly behind the ruined town gates.

The results were imdiate and utterly apocalyptic.

The kobolds, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in their frantic desperation to flood into the plaza, had nowhere to run. The thick, viscous fire clung to their rusted iron armour, seeped into the gaps of their hardened leather, and lted their scales to the bone. A hundred or more of them were caught in the initial blast, their high-pitched, chittering war cries instantly transforming into agonising, unified shrieks that threatened to drown out the roar of the flas themselves.

Brett gritted his teeth, his jaw locked so tightly his molars ached. He swept his arms from left to right, painting the killing zone with a thick layer of arcane napalm, ensuring that any creature attempting to step over the burning corpses of their kin would instantly ignite.

Burn. Just keep burning, he chanted in his mind, ignoring the horrific stench of cooking reptilian at and sulphur that was rising in thick, greasy plus to choke him.

But the beast he was wrestling was feeding directly from his own soul.

Channelling magic was a brutal, physical drain. It felt as though an icy, jagged hook had been buried deep into his chest cavity and was slowly reeling out his life force. The brilliant, glowing blue circuitry of his magical pathways, normally a source of comforting warmth beneath his skin, felt like they were filled with crushed glass and battery acid.

After fifteen seconds of continuous casting, the edges of Brett’s vision began to blur, tunnelling inward until all he could see was the hellscape he was creating below. Black spots danced across his retinas. A wave of profound, nauseating dizziness washed over him, making the solid stone beneath his boots feel like the pitching deck of a ship in a storm.

His knees buckled.

The torrent of fire instantly sputtered and died, leaving only the terrifying afterimage burned into his eyes and the crackling of the burning horde below. Brett collapsed backwards, his back slamming hard against the cold stone of a defensive rlon. He gasped for air, his lungs pulling in the noxious, ash-filled smog, triggering a violent fit of coughing that brought the tallic taste of blood to the back of his throat.

"Get up! You have to get up!" a voice was screaming nearby.

Brett forced his heavy, unfocused eyes open. The wall was a scene of absolute pandemonium. The shockwave of the void-powder explosion that had breached the gates had thrown dozens of defenders from their feet. n and won were crawling blindly through the dust, clutching bleeding ears, their faces pale masks of pure, unfiltered shellshock.

But not all of them.

Through the haze, Brett saw the familiar, battered silhouettes of his friends. Josh was bodily hauling a terrified militiaman to his feet, shoving a spear into the boy's trembling hands and pointing down towards the stairs.

"To the plaza!" the man was roaring, his voice sohow cutting through the ringing tinnitus. "They're through the gates! Anyone who can swing a sword, get down those stairs! Ranged fighters, to the edge! Move, damn you, move!"

It was the spark the wall needed. The paralysis of the explosion began to break. Adventurers, accustod to the sudden, violent chaos of dungeon breaks, were shaking off the concussive force and springing into action. They were shouting orders, physically dragging the town guard out of their stupor, and forcing them back into a defensive posture.

Brett watched, his chest heaving, as a half-dozen archers staggered to the crenellations, nocked arrows with trembling fingers, and began to fire blindly down into the smoke.

I need a minute, Brett thought, his hands shaking so violently he could barely unclip the leather pouch at his belt. Just one minute.

He fumbled with the clasp, his fingers feeling thick and numb, until he finally managed to retrieve a small, crystalline vial. The mana potion inside sloshed sluggishly, glowing with a faint, sapphire luminescence. It wasn't a high-grade restorative—just a standard, bitter brew he had been given earlier in the night—but right now, it looked like the nectar of the gods.

Brett yanked the cork out with his teeth, spat it over the edge of the wall, and downed the contents in three desperate gulps.

It tasted like copper, mint, and pure ozone. The liquid hit his stomach and instantly vaporised, sending a violent, icy shockwave through his depleted magical circuits. He arched his back, a sharp hiss escaping his lips as the raw, unrefined mana forced the narrowed pathways of his core back open. It wasn't a pleasant sensation—it felt like drinking a thunderstorm—but it cleared the black spots from his vision and chased away the sickening dizziness.

He staggered back to his feet, leaning heavily against the stone.

The volu of fire coming from the wall was steadily increasing. More and more mages and rangers were finding their wits, drawn by the shouts of his friends as they left the wall to defend the gate. Bolts of arcane energy—crackling purple lightning, shards of jagged ice, and erald globes of acid—began to streak down from the battlents, joining the relentless rain of steel-tipped arrows.

Brett pushed himself off the rlon and began to make his way along the walkway, moving directly above the massive, shattered archway of the main gate. He didn't unleash another huge spell; he couldn't afford to burn his newly acquired mana so quickly. Instead, he conserved his energy, casting single, highly condensed Fireballs and hurling them down like arcane grenades into the thickest clusters of the horde pushing towards the ruined timber doors.

Boom. Boom. Boom. The explosions rattled his teeth, sending fragnted scales and rusted armour flying into the air. He could feel the montum shifting slightly. The sheer, overwhelming volu of projectiles raining down from the high ground was creating a horrific at grinder at the entrance. The kobolds were dying by the hundreds, and he thought for a mont that the flood was being stemd.

Feeling a montary surge of grim satisfaction, Brett paused his casting and turned his head, looking over the rear edge of the wall to check on the situation in the plaza below.

His montary satisfaction instantly evaporated, replaced by a cold, leaden weight of absolute dread.

Down in the plaza, bathed in the sickly purple light of the fires and the moon, stood a secondary barricade that had been hastily assembled. It was a pathetic, chest-high pile of tavern tables and supply carts. And behind it, holding the line against the vast number of kobolds that had survived the initial breach, stood Josh and Bhel, shoulder to shoulder with only a handful of other fighters.

From Brett's elevated vantage point, the scale of the horror was laid bare.

The horde had spread out the mont they cleared the gatehouse bottleneck, fanning out across the wide cobblestone plaza like a dark, scaly stain. And standing in the centre of that tidal wave, attempting to hold back the ocean with a teacup, were his friends.

He watched Josh, easily identifiable by his broad, armoured shoulders, slam his heavy shield into a cluster of leaping monsters. Even from thirty feet up, Brett could see the terrifying, concussive force of the impacts. Josh was being pushed backward, his boots sliding through the mud, his heavy sword lashing out in desperate, exhausted arcs.

Beside him, Bhel was a blur of frantic, blood-soaked motion. The dwarven warrior was fighting with a terrifying, feral intensity, his twin axes carving through the front ranks. But for every creature he dismbered, another stood up to take its place, whilst another scrambled over the barricade, disappearing into the shadows of the town.

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They were drowning.

Brett could see the utter exhaustion in their posture. He could see the way Josh's shield arm sagged a fraction of an inch lower after every deflection. He could see Bhel stumbling slightly as a spear grazed his thigh. The town militia, scattered thinly along the rest of the barricade, were dying. The line was buckling.

"They aren't going to make it," Brett whispered to himself, the words tasting like ash. "There's too many. They're going to be overrun."

He spun back towards the walkway, a frantic, desperate energy seizing him. He needed to cast. He needed to throw everything he had down into that plaza to buy them space.

But as he raised his glowing hands, a stark realisation brought him up short. He took a single, critical minute to actually look at the defenders arrayed along the massive length of the wall.

The archers, crossbown, and mages were working frantically, leaning over the forward crenellations and pouring fire down into the bottleneck outside the gates. They were doing exactly what they needed to do.

But behind them, taking up almost half the space on the thirty-foot-wide walkway, were the lee fighters.

Scores of them. Heavy infantry in chainmail, spearn clutching long ash poles, rogues with drawn daggers, and massive warriors leaning on two-handed swords. They were standing in tight, defensive clusters, their weapons raised, their eyes locked intensely on the stone edge of the wall in front of them.

They were waiting to repel climbers. They were waiting for the siege ladders to hook over the stone so they could hack the climbers back down into the ditch.

But Brett had seen the horde outside. The kobolds weren't carrying ladders anymore. The explosion had shattered the main gates completely. The path of least resistance was wide open. The horde, driven by a simplistic, animalistic swarm intelligence, was no longer attempting the slow, perilous climb up the sheer stone face. They were all funnelling, in their thousands, directly toward the gaping hole at ground level.

There was close to zero threat of the wall being scaled right now. The true battle, the only battle that actually mattered, was happening down in the plaza.

And yet, nearly a hundred heavily ard n and won were simply standing there, clutching their weapons, paralysed by their assigned orders and the sheer, overwhelming terror of the night. They were guarding an empty periter while the town's defence was bleeding to death fifty yards behind them.

A sudden, terrifying rush of noise from below snapped Brett out of his tactical analysis. A fresh wave of enemies had managed to push through the killing floor of the gatehouse, their shrieks echoing off the stone as they flooded toward the pathetic barricade.

"Hey!" Brett scread, abandoning his position overlooking the gate. He sprinted down the walkway towards the nearest cluster of idle fighters—a heavily armoured adventuring party built around a paladin with a massive tower shield. "Hey! What are you doing?!"

The paladin blinked, tearing his eyes away from the empty parapet to look at the frantic, soot-stained mage running towards him. "Holding the wall," the man grunted, his voice tight with adrenaline. "Waiting for the climbers."

"There are no climbers!" Brett roared, gesturing wildly over his shoulder toward the plaza. "They blew the gates! They’re all going through the centre! They’re hitting the barricade!"

A rogue in the party shifted uncomfortably, twirling a dagger. "The Captain ordered us to hold the upper periter. If we leave, and they throw hooks—"

"If you leave, you might actually save the town!" Brett cut him off, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and pure, unfiltered desperation. He pointed a trembling, soot-stained finger down towards the plaza. "Look down there! Look at them!"

The paladin hesitantly stepped towards the rear edge of the wall and peered over. He saw the sea of monsters. He saw the barricade buckling. He saw Josh, taking an ungodly amount of punishnt to keep the monsters away from the wounded militian.

"Gods above," the paladin breathed, his face paling beneath his helm.

"My friends are down there!" Brett scread, the volu of his voice tearing at his vocal cords. He wasn't a leader. He wasn't a general. He was just a guy from another world who was terrified of watching his best friend die. He grabbed the heavy steel rim of the paladin's tower shield and hauled on it with all his agre strength. "They are standing in the mud, bleeding out, to protect you! To protect this town!"

The surrounding groups of idle lee fighters turned to look. The frantic spellcasting of the mages and the thrumming of bowstrings seed to montarily fade into the background, leaving only Brett's desperate, cracking voice echoing along the stone.

"If that barricade falls, the horde is in!" Brett bellowed, spinning to face the wider crowd, his eyes wide and manic, glowing faintly with the residual blue light of his mana. "They flood the streets! They take the keep! And every single one of us standing up here on this safe, quiet wall will be surrounded and slaughtered like pigs in a pen!"

He stepped right into the face of a massive tigerkin wielding a two-handed maul. "You want to live? You want to survive this night? Then you get your arse down those stairs right now and you stand behind the n who are actually doing the fighting! Move!"

For three agonising seconds, nobody moved. The weight of military discipline fought a desperate battle against the terrifying logic of the mage's words.

Then, the tigerkin grunted. He spat on the stone, hoisted his massive maul onto his shoulder, and turned toward the nearest stairwell. "The little spark is right," he rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "No glory in guarding empty air. Let's go break so skulls."

The paladin swore softly, drew his longsword, and nodded to his party. "With . To the barricade."

The dam broke.

The paralysis shattered. The terrifying reality of the situation finally pierced the fog of their assigned orders. A low, unified roar began to build along the wall as the idle lee fighters—adventurers, rcenaries, and town guards alike—broke formation. They turned their backs on the empty parapets and surged towards the stone staircases in a clattering, shouting wave of steel and heavy armour.

Brett watched them go, a profound, dizzying sense of relief washing over him. He slumped against the wall, taking a deep, shuddering breath. It wasn't an army, but hopefully, it was enough heavily ard bodies to be the cavalry.

Hold on, Josh, Brett prayed silently. Just hold on a little longer. They're coming.

He didn't follow them down. He knew his strengths, and they did not lie in close-quarters brawling in the mud. He was artillery, and the artillery was needed at the breach.

Brett turned and sprinted back towards his position directly above the buckling secondary barricade. He leaned dangerously far over the inner crenellations, his eyes locking onto the cluster of monsters overwhelming Josh and Bhel.

He didn't bother with a complex incantation; he just opened his core and let the raw, volatile energy flood into his palms. The heat was blistering, painting his soot-stained face in a demonic orange glow.

"Get down!" Brett scread, his voice raw and tearing at his vocal cords.

Even over the deafening roar of the battle, his voice cut through. Down in the mud, Josh imdiately dipped his knees, pulling his heavy shield over his head like an umbrella. Bhel dropped into a crouch a fraction of a second later, covering the back of his neck with his thick arms.

"Eat this, you scaly bastards!" Brett roared.

He thrust his hands downward, unleashing a massive, uncontrolled jet of sticky fire directly over his friends' heads. A roaring torrent of liquid fla surged over the masses of kobolds in front of them, so close that Josh could feel the hairs of his beard singe and curl beneath his helm.

A cone of magical fla slamd into the packed ranks of the kobolds pressing against the barricade, turning thirty monsters into screaming, flailing torches in a split second. The viscous napalm clung to their scales, spreading panic and agonizing death through the vanguard.

The intense heat of the spell sent a backdraft howling up the wall, singeing Brett’s own eyebrows and forcing him to turn his face away, but he held the channel. He poured the last reserves of his potion-fuelled mana into the chokepoint, effectively stemming the flow towards his friends for a few, precious seconds.

He let the spell die, gasping for air, and looked down, hoping to see the line stabilise.

The flow had indeed paused. The lesser kobolds balked at the wall of superheated, burning corpses Brett had just created. But as the smoke from the magical fire cleared slightly, Brett saw why the horde had truly stopped pushing.

They weren't retreating. They were making way.

Through the parting sea of lesser monsters, striding directly through the residual, burning napalm without so much as flinching, a nightmare erged.

It was a kobold, but mutated into an eight-foot-tall, hunchbacked abomination of overlapping black scales and hyper-inflated muscle. It carried a massive, iron-bound column of stone over one shoulder like a toy. It was an elite. A siege-breaker.

Brett felt the blood drain entirely from his face.

He watched in helpless, frozen horror as the behemoth marched straight past the burning corpses and approached the centre of the secondary barricade. He watched the Captain of the guard, a brave man in full plate, step up to challenge it, trying to buy the newly arrived reinforcents ti to form up.

The elite swung the stone column. The impact was cataclysmic.

The barricade exploded into lethal shrapnel. The Captain's legs buckled, his shield folding like tin, his body kicked aside like a ragdoll. Three veteran guards were hurled through the air, their bodies broken before they even hit the ground. The centre of the defence was utterly annihilated in a single, devastating swing.

"No!" Brett scread. "We have to help them!"

He looked frantically towards the left flank, where Josh and Bhel were fighting. They were completely cut off. The lesser kobolds were already swarming through the breach created by the elite, flooding the gap and flanking his friends' position.

"I need firepower on the centre!" Brett shrieked, turning to the surrounding ranged fighters on the wall. His voice was shrill, laced with absolute terror. "Focus the big one! Hit the elite!"

A dozen mages and archers nearby, seeing the devastation below, pivoted their aim. A volley of steel-tipped arrows and crackling bolts of arcane energy streaked down toward the behemoth.

They peppered the creature's broad back and thick shoulders. Arrows shattered against the obsidian scales; minor fireballs detonated harmlessly against its heavy armour plating. The siege-breaker didn't even flinch. It rely shook off the impacts like a dog shaking off rain, slowly raising its massive stone column.

Brett gripped the cold stone of the wall, his fingernails bleeding as he desperately scraped the very bottom of his empty magical core, trying to find just one more spark, one more fireball. But there was nothing left. The sticky fire had drained him completely.

All he had left now was the hope that the reinforcents to the wall would be enough.