The second wave advanced with a purpose the first had lacked.
Where the initial three dozen had crept through the forest like nervous mice, this group moved as a cohesive unit. Over a hundred Lacert soldiers pushed through the trees in staggered columns, their weapons drawn and their formation tight. And at the head of this force, the crimson-scaled Lacert strode forward, his movements were loose and almost graceful.
Then Grub noticed something strange.
Two ordinary Lacert soldiers walked beside the crimson commander carrying lit torches despite the daylight. The flames danced in the Ceasus wind, their glow casting shifting shadows across the scaled faces surrounding them.
Grub rubbed his eyes. Torches? In a dense forest during a siege?
His mind cycled through possibilities. Are they planning to burn the forest down? He considered the idea for a moment before dismissing it. Even with a favorable wind, a forest fire would take far too long to spread effectively, and the smoke would blind their own forces as much as the defenders. Burning the terrain you were advancing through was strategically idiotic.
So why carry fire into battle?
He didn't have to wait long before he got his answer.
The red Lacert barked orders at the two torchbearers and they raised their flames high above their heads. Then the crimson soldier began to move. It started as a sway. A rhythmic shifting of weight from one foot to the other that looked almost involuntary. Then the sway became a step, the step became a turn, and the turn became fluid as he began to mix and match his movements.
He's dancing?
The red Lacert danced between the torchbearers with skillful grace, his body rolling through motions that seemed choreographed to some internal rhythm. His clawed feet traced patterns in the dirt as arms swept through the air in wide, flowing arcs.
And the fire responded to his caper.
Grub felt the Anima before he understood what was happening. A pulse of energy radiated from the dancing figure, faint at distance but unmistakable to anyone with even basic Anima sensitivity. Beside him, El sat upright with a subtle shift in posture that let Grub know she had felt it too.
"It's Anima-based," El murmured. "That must be his Forte."
Far below at the first wall, Morrigan must have sensed it as well because her posture changed for the first time since the battle began. Her head tilted slightly and her eyes narrowed toward the forest. Her basin rippled in suspicion.
The crimson Lacert spun once more. The tiny flames atop both torches suddenly stretched higher.
They swelled from modest flickering lights into roaring pillars of orange and white that climbed three, four, five times their original size. The heat was visible even from the third wall, the air around the torchbearers warping and shimmering as the temperature spiked.
The red Lacert's dance intensified. His movements became faster, sharper, and more commanding.Each flick of the dancer's wrist bent the flames like ribbons following choreography. Every step caused them to twist and sway in perfect rhythm with his body. He was bending the fire to his body's rhythm the way a puppeteer bends strings.
Soon both torches roared like blazing bonfires. Then, with one final sweeping motion, the crimson Lacert thrust an open palm toward the forest and the flames obeyed.
A colossal wave of fire erupted from the torches and shot forward through the forest in a blazing torrent.The inferno surged across the jungle floor like a living beast, devouring bushes, vines and fallen leaves before climbing the trunks of ancient trees. Branches ignited in an instant as the fire carved a blazing corridor straight through the trap field.
The careful trap network that Grub had spent days constructing was consumed in seconds, wooden mechanisms and vine ropes and woven branch coverings reduced to ash and cinder as the firestorm carved a smoldering corridor straight through the defensive perimeter.
Grub's hands clenched against the wall. His jaw tightened as he watched hours of meticulous work vanish in a wall of heat and light.
"...Shit."
Tripwires snapped. Hidden nets burned away. Deadfalls crashed harmlessly as supporting ropes turned to ash. Entire sections of the carefully engineered trap network simply vanished. Only the pits remained untouched. From inside the inferno he heard Pazuzu's yelp.
The fire roared all the way through the thicket toward the first wall where Morrigan and her squad stood their ground. The volunteers flinched, a few raised their arms instinctively. But Morrigan didn't move an inch.
Instead of crashing into the defenders, the inferno curved upward as though striking an invisible ramp. Thousands of blazing tongues twisted toward the heavens before shooting into the sky like a fiery reverse-waterfall.
Current, Morrigan's Forte, had caught the incoming force and rerouted it above them without a single flame touching their hair. The old kappa stood in the aftermath with a grim expression, smoke curling around her feet but not a scorch mark on her robe.
As the fire dissipated, he saw Pazuzu limp out of the smoldering forest, half his body was covered in burns. Morrigan briefly glanced at him before one of the volunteers broke formation and helped the horned Guardian into the formation.
Grub stared, dumbfounded. "...She redirected all of it..."
The red Lacert watched the failed attack with visible frustration. Then, with another elegant flourish, he swept both hands backward. Across the battlefield every burning tree responded. The flames tore themselves away from the forest and streamed back toward the torches in long ribbons of fire. The fire streamed back across the clearing and funneled itself into the two torches, which absorbed the returning flames until they shrank back to their original modest flicker.
The forest fell silent.
Where dense undergrowth and canopy had stood minutes ago, a scorched corridor now ran from the outer tree line nearly to the first wall. The ground was blackened. The trees on either side were charred but standing, their leaves burned away to reveal skeletal branches. Smoke drifted lazily upward from the devastated path.
Grub scowled from the third wall. Most of his traps in that corridor had been constructed from wood, rope, and natural materials. The fire had obliterated the majority of them. A few pit traps with stone-lined walls might have survived, but everything above ground in that line of fire was gone.
The Lacerts now had a clear corridor straight to the first wall. There were no longer traps in their way, just open, scorched earth.
One ability just undid days of work in fifteen seconds.
The red Lacert raised his arm and bellowed commands to the soldiers massed behind him. Grub couldn't make out the specific words at this distance, but the intent was unmistakable.
The army charged.
Over a hundred Lacert soldiers surged down the burned corridor in a thundering rush, their weapons raised and war cries filling the smoky air. Their formation was loose but aggressive as a wave of scales and steel barreled toward the first wall.
Morrigan held her hand in the air, her palm raised toward the approaching horde. The Guardians and volunteers at her side gripped their weapons. None of them moved yet. The old kappa's timing was always intentional.
The red Lacert, who had been charging alongside his troops, suddenly skidded to a halt. His crimson scales caught the light as he stared ahead, and horror washed across his face.
"What the—?" His arm shot up in a fist, signaling a halt. The soldiers nearest him stumbled over each other as momentum clashed with the sudden order.
He stared at Morrigan. It seemed he hadn't actually registered who was standing at the first wall until the distance closed. And now that he could see her clearly, the beaked face, the basin, the staff, the flowers, the complete and utter lack of concern on her expression, recognition flooded his face.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he snarled.
Morrigan looked at him with an expression of mock confusion. "What do you mean? This is my village. Why wouldn't I be here?"
The red Lacert's scowl deepened. His yellow eyes darted between Morrigan and the forces arrayed behind the wall.
Morrigan tilted her head. "Don't give me such a foul face. Do you even know who I am?" She planted her staff and straightened to her full, unimpressive height. "I am Morrigan Craftania. Chief of this village. Who exactly are you?"
The red Lacert's jaw tightened. Grub could see the calculation running behind those yellow eyes. The intelligence that had been fed to the Colonel said Morrigan had left the village with a strike force aimed at the camp. She was supposed to be gone. This was supposed to be a skeleton crew defended by poisoned Guardians.
Instead, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was standing right in front of him with a full defensive force at her back and not a trace of poison in any of them.
"I am Lieutenant Colonel Saander," the red Lacert growled, his composure fracturing at the edges. "And your village, legendary Morrigan, will burn."
With a single fluid motion of his body, fire erupted from the torches flanking him and streaked toward Morrigan in a concentrated lance of flame. The heat warped the air as it crossed the distance.
Morrigan didn't even blink. The fire reached her and curved sideways, redirected by Current. It went harmlessly around her before dispersing into glowing embers.
Saander's eyes widened for only a fraction of a second.
Then he reacted instantly. While the failed attack sizzled against the fortifications, Saander broke from the charging army and sprinted toward a tall tree at the edge of the burned corridor. He scaled it with reptilian agility, his clawed feet finding purchase on the charred bark, and settled on a high branch overlooking the battlefield.
He whistled sharply.
A Simurgh bird materialized from somewhere above the canopy, its iridescent plumage catching the smoky light as it swooped down and landed on his outstretched arm. Saander leaned close and began speaking rapidly to the creature, his words urgent and his expression furious.
Grub's stomach dropped. He knew exactly what Saander was doing. The Lieutenant Colonel was sending a message back to Gavial. Telling him the intelligence was false. That Morrigan was here. That the army splitting had been a trick.
If that bird reaches Gavial…
But there was nothing Grub could do from the third wall. The bird was too far, the tree too high, and he was under strict orders to hold his position.
Below, the Lacert army resumed their charge. Over a hundred soldiers poured down the scorched corridor toward the first wall, their war cries rising into a deafening chorus. The ground shook under their combined weight.
Morrigan watched them come. Her hand was still raised. Then she screamed.
"ARCHERS!" The command thundered across the battlefield. "FIRE!"
Volleys of arrows launched from both the first and second walls simultaneously. Bowstrings snapped in rapid succession as dozens of archers released their payloads into the smoky sky. The arrows arced upward, a dark cloud of shafts rising against the haze.
Grub watched their trajectories. Many should have missed. Arrows that should have fallen among the charging Lacerts seemed destined to miss by yards.
Until they changed directions.
A subtle shift in the air caught each shaft mid-flight, the invisible current of Morrigan's Forte redirecting the scattered volley into a concentrated rain of death. Arrows that had been flying wide snapped inward. Shafts that had been climbing too high suddenly dove. The entire barrage converged on the charging army like a flock of predatory birds finding the same prey.
The screams that followed were immediate and numerous. Lacerts stumbled and fell as arrows punched through armor gaps, pierced scaled limbs, and embedded themselves in shields and chests. The front line of the charge collapsed into a tangle of writhing bodies and broken momentum.
But the soldiers behind them climbed over the fallen and kept coming. The charge didn't stop. It couldn't stop. The sheer mass of bodies behind the front line pushed the survivors forward whether they wanted to advance or not.
Soon, they reached the base of the first wall.
Morrigan picked up her staff with one hand and raised it above her head. The water in her basin churned violently.
"ATTACK!"