The steel ants still lashed the peripheries of the enemy as the Keldon center advanced into oblivion under the hammering metal arms of the crabs. Now Barrin saw the mantises charging the left wing of the enemy army. The colorful machines broke through the thinning lines, their long arms slicing through flesh and manikin with equal ease. Then the marines and their charges were through with the barges only a few hundred yards away. The machines ran forward as their handlers ordered them to engage at pointblank range with their reloaded rockets.
Then Barrin sensed magic from the Keldon barges like a sea of fire burning. Slaves and barge crew rushed out of their craft in a panicky mass, and flocks of birds issued forth. They circled and rose high over the battlefield then fell onto the League forces. As each small body smashed into a soldier or machine, it disintegrated in a sharp explosion. Barrin could see the center melting away, the bludgeoning crabs chewed to pieces by the attack. The surrounding infantry died as men fell with sudden ghastly wounds. Mageta struck out at a diving bird, and the resulting explosion tore at his arm and knocked the general to the ground. More bomblets dived from the orbiting flock, now striking at the steel ants that had feasted on the flanks of the enemy. Shalanda went down as her runner was struck, and Rayne attacked the Keldon warriors who rushed to kill her aide. The mantises fired rockets, but many had already fallen or were crippled, and only a few barges exploded.
More of the tiny bombs launched into the air, and Barrin knew that only magic could save the day.
"Throw fire and lightning!" he called to the magical reserves.
A long stream of power leaped from Barrin up into the sky. Explosions rippled through the flock, disrupting its structure and sending many of the birds spiraling to the ground. The League and the Keldons suffered equally as men died and huddled for shelter. From the circle of magic behind him, a diffuse cloud of flame moved toward the birds. The birds began to detonate as the outskirts of the flock flew within the League spell. Barrin sent energy to shield the friendly forces, but the battlefield was too large. He concentrated on shielding Rayne and Shalanda as the rest of the fire-swallows fell out of the sky. Finally the rain of death stopped, but the League center was down, and Keldons rushed into the defensive works.
However, Barrin felt rising hope. The warriors and manikins moved slower and stumbled even as they tried to exploit the breach. Barrin could feel the Keldons stopping as some began to fall in exhaustion or even death as their fighting machines sucked the last energy from their frames. The wizard's heart lifted even more as he saw Rayne and Shalanda back up. The scouts and their runners had survived, and handlers directed their ants to attack once more. The outskirts of the enemy army could only beat weakly at the small machines as war manikins stopped in mid-swing and warriors collapsed.
"We need to reinforce the center!" Barrin ordered. "Everyone will advance and engage the enemy." Runners ran to order technicians, cooks, and quartermasters to charge the enemy. Barrin walked forward, raising power as he prepared to sluice the trenches clean of invading warriors.
Then he was stunned by a surge of new magical energy from Arsenal City. The magic users had not recognized the Keldons' weakness. Magic that Barrin hoped to direct against the enemy was instead expended in a wordless ringing call. His senses seared by the wave, it took him precious seconds to regain his equilibrium. During that time, Teferi appeared on the battlefield.
The planeswalker jumped into the defensive works, and Barrin could hear him calling. Teferi's magic touched him, but only Barrin's momentary injury communicated itself to the planeswalker. Surrounded by enemy warriors and dead League soldiers, Teferi cast a mighty spell.
Energy rippled out in a huge wave through the ground. Even those with almost no magical talent could feel the surge. The ground began to liquefy, flowing into the trenches and burying Keldon warriors and the League dead. Out on the battlefield, huge sinkholes appeared and sucked down the enemy corpses. The land barges tossed and bucked as the land danced under them. The Keldons retreated in confusion and fear as the ground itself showed allegiance to the League. The soldiers who had been around the crabs climbed to their feet and reformed as the retreating enemy flowed back to the barges. The center was saved, but the effects of Teferi's spell continued to spread as Barrin watched.
Steel ants bogged down as thousands of small pits opened up. Marine mantises almost in firing range of the Keldon barges were shoulder deep in the ground, their arms tearing furrows as they tried to slash themselves free. More Keldons retreated, struggling through the mud holes appearing everywhere. Barrin could see the land barges advancing into the muck as Teferi's attack waned. The huge craft moved slowly but were able to reach the core of their army.
Mageta was up but nearly unrecognizable. "Cowards!" he yelled and struggled forward. Covered in mud and blood, only the device on the general's helmet identified him. He slogged a few steps, his injured arm hanging limply at his side, before falling down once more as he passed out.
"We survived. That's the most important thing," Rayne whispered into Barrin's ear as the couple clasped each other tightly. Rayne's runner had finally battled its way through the uncertain ground and the dead as the wizard struggled through the earthworks to find her.
"It was a chance to destroy the Keldon forces, and now they've withdrawn." Barrin looked east in anger. "Our first chance to crush the enemy on land, and we missed it."
Teferi and the support troops were bringing the wounded and the war machines into the city. Here and there a Keldon warrior was found alive, and troops converged to capture them.
Rayne only nodded noncommittally. She stepped past him and knelt to inspect a fire-swallow. It had started life as a bird but at some point was transformed into a weapon. The eyes were stitched shut, and the feathers were glossy with some sort of coating. Barrin sniffed the air and could smell the refined tufa liquid draining and soaking into the dirt.
"Those were an unpleasant surprise," Barrin said as he looked at it. "The battle was in our favor before they launched."
Someone clearing her throat interrupted the couple. Shalanda stood thick with mud. She had been inspecting the battlefield and the casualties. She had just come from healing some of the wounded, and she breathed heavily as she recharged her strength to try again.
"Seventy percent of the wounded should be ready for duty in two weeks, Barrin. But we might have a problem. That flu has cropped up again among some of the wounded and the personnel helping clear the battlefield. It may be a few weeks before the illness burns itself out," she declared. "That's fine," Barrin replied. "It will be a few months before we can concentrate enough forces to march east." He straightened, and his lips thinned. "I think we've turned a corner in this war. From now on, we take the fight to the enemy."
Chapter 17
Haddad woke at sea, his lungs burning as he breathed smoke from the censer swinging above his head. He thrashed and threw his hands over the sides of the stasis box. Haddad moaned in pain as his muscles shook with tremors and cramps. The crash of waves could be clearly heard in the hold as the former League officer gripped his head and coughed up the dust from his lungs.
Lanterns swung from beams, and he tried to orient himself by their light. Latulla and her entire party had been interred in stasis boxes within minutes of the artificer's defeat. Slowly the party was being revived. They must be at or near Jamuraa.