FicWad

Disclaimer - I'm no longer broke but GW still isn't mine, oh well, and I'm still not making any money off of this.

Chapter 3 - Counter Strike

Sir Tydus was right where he was supposed to be, just north of the wall, not far from the eastern gate. However, there was no great army, and these lands had been seared as well, as far as the eye could see the land was burnt. Sir Tydus was issuing orders while the many wounded were being treated off to the left. Malios trotted up to Sir Tydus and handed him the letter.

"It's obvious what happened here, but my question is why, Sir Tydus?"

"I believe the charr wanted to destroy Surmia and Nolani in this attack or even the army if they saw us amassing here," Sir Tydus replied.

"Do you not know sir?" enquired Malios, "the charr hit all of Ascalon; I came out here to see if we could attack the siege weapons. I suggest you read that letter sir."

Sir Tydus opened the letter and began reading, "my god! Well the prince and king are safe. Ascalon City... Ashford... the Abbey... Rin on fire on the horizon... promotion... hero... commendation..."

"Sir Tydus? Is there anything we can do about those weapons?"

"Halcyon. The prince has recommended you for a commendation and has promoted you to corporal and on your first day no less. He wrote about you ordering him around as though he were the new recruit and you the prince. You have saved many lives already this day. As you can see we were hit pretty badly in this attack, however I can spare a few men to scout out one of these weapons. You will be in charge, since this is your idea, despite some of them outranking you. The nearest one is about two miles north of here, but the damn charr keep moving them back to sear more of the land. From the prince's report it looks as though they hit the most populous places first, Rin and Ascalon City, then everything south of the wall and now they are hitting all of our lands north of the wall as well. If you think that you can, I give you permission to take the siege weapon. MHENLO!" he finished in a shout.

Malios was very surprised when his mentor and 'brother' turned from a wounded soldier and jogged up to Sir Tydus.

"Mhenlo gather Devona, Cynn and Aidan. I have a mission for you, oh and Cpl. Halcyon is in charge!" Sir Tydus ordered.

"Aye, Sir Tydus," replied Mhenlo, "come on little brother, the others are over here." The two began to walk away from Sir Tydus before Mhenlo continued talking, "so promoted already, you must have done something good on this awful day. Any news from Rin and Ascalon City?"

"Adelbern and Rurik are safe in the old emergency bunker. We had no news from Rin before I came here, but we could see the flames from where we were. There is very little left of Ascalon City and I'm afraid that Ashford and the Abbey were completely destroyed."

"So, what did you do to get promoted and command of this mission?"

"This mission was my idea; I suggested it to Prince Rurik, who gave me sealed orders for Sir Tydus. I had no idea that they would give me command over you and Devona. As to why I've been promoted, well..." and Malios proceeded to tell Mhenlo about the events of the day.

"You have done well, if not for you many more would've died and not many get away with ordering a prince around. Ah, here we are. Devona, Cynn, Aidan we have a mission to do."

"What is it?" enquired Aidan.

"I have absolutely no idea; we have a new commander for this one. Cynn, Aidan I would like you to meet Cpl. Malios Halcyon"

"You must have impressed 'em already to be promoted on the day you joined the Vanguard," stated a visibly impressed Devona.

"What, they've given a newbie command over us?" questioned Cynn, she was not happy. Malios knew of her infatuation with Mhenlo and she obviously believed that he should be in charge not some newly promoted recruit. Of course this completely ignored the fact that Devona was the most highly ranked of the four and Aidan was the oldest.

"That's enough Cynn!" Mhenlo said with a glare towards the hot-headed fire mage, "if you can not respect my brother, then you will respect Prince Rurik, Sir Tydus and myself. Carry on Corporal."

"Thank you. We are to head to the nearest charr siege weapon and see if we can destroy it. We are too late to save Ascalon but thee is nothing at the moment to stop those bastards from firing on the survivors. The attack has stopped for now and I think I know why."

"Why is that, I can see no reason to stop the attack, they could just pound away all day and night?" questioned Aidan.

"I believe they are awaiting a report from Vatlaaw Doomtooth, he's been using the catacombs to get around Ascalon for weeks. What they won't know for a while is that Doomtooth is dead, we caught him hiding in the old bunker just before the attack. That is now being used as a refugee site, we have a few people trapped in the catacombs under the Abbey but the prince assigned a few people to take care of it. Others should be at Fort Ranik but I hadn't heard from Mirrax by the time I left."

"Mirrax, as in Mirrax Beasttamer?" asked Aidan.

"Yes, she was part of my team today, along with Alesia Baptiste and Orion Elek, as far as I know she is still alive, and I sincerely hope that she is. However, I found her father dead in Ascalon City, I'm sorry Aidan I know you were close to the family." Here Malios paused for a moment, "now we have to move out. We go north!" he ordered.

The five of them headed north at a steady pace, an hour later they crested a ridge to see a charr Flame Keeper activating the weapon again. He was guarded by two Axe warriors and two Ashen Claws. In the distance they could see more fiery balls launching into the air.

"They're attacking again! Aidan take out the flame keeper then cover us as best you can. Cynn, target the Ashen Claws and don't hold back! Mhenlo protect Devona while we move in," ordered Malios.

As soon as he finished speaking Aidan let loose a barrage of arrows that took down a surprised charr. Devona and Malios charged the approaching axe warriors. When they were in close enough Malios swung his hammer low and took the charrs legs, knocking it to the ground, his follow up was straight to the head proving that crushing a charrs skull was not a fluke. One of the Ashen Claws was writhing on the ground still burning, it would not be long for this world. Using bane signet, he knocked the remaining axe warrior off of its feet where Devona could finish it off. The remaining Ashen Claw didn't last long as it fell to a combination of attacks from Aidan and Cynn.

"Cynn, Mhenlo can you get this thing working?" asked Malios.

"Possibly, why?" replied Cynn.

"We've got to stop the charr from killing any more survivors, I want to use their own weapon against them."

"Alright, Cynn lets see what we can do. Aidan we're going to need some targets," said Mhenlo.

It took a few minutes, but eventually they got the weapon working and fired on the nearest enemy. Again and again they fired using Aidan's directions and systematically destroyed all of the charr weapons that they could find. Twice they had to stop firing to fend off charr counter attacks, the second resulting in a broken arm for Malios that he was lucky not to lose. A charr warrior boss had cleaved right through his shield and was barely stopped by Malios' gauntlets, at the same time Malios had thrust his sword below the charrs breastplate and upwards into its vital organs killing it instantly. Malios fought on with only one arm wielding his father's sword with constant pain from the jarring of his arm as he moved, he cut through another 6 charr in that battle. Afterwards, Mhenlo quickly splinted and made a sling for Malios' arm using pieces of Malios' broken shield and his own robe before returning to the weapon and firing again. Hours later they were standing on the only bit of unseared land in the whole of Ascalon.

"Mhenlo can you see any way of destroying this abomination?" asked Malios.

"Only one," replied the wise monk, "we simply fire straight upwards and then run. Anything else we could do to it would be too easy to repair. Mal, you better retreat to a safe distance, you won't be able to move quickly with that arm."

"Do it!"

Malios climbed to the top of the ridge with help from Devona. Looking around himself he could only mourn the loss of a great landscape and marvel at how lucky they had been not to have been hit when the charr gave up sending groups to kill them and simply fired upon them. The little hollow they had been in had saved their lives as the charr couldn't get an exact fix on their position. The area all around them had been blasted repeatedly and was much worse off than other areas. When they were far enough away Cynn and Mhenlo fired and then ran as quickly as they could.

It was late evening when the tired and injured party returned to the army camp. Sir Tydus had left a couple of scouts there with a message that the army had returned to various parts of Ascalon to do what they could to help and that they should report to Prince Rurik.

An hour later, with Malios almost dead on his feet, they found Prince Rurik and Sir Tydus talking with the king near what used to be the actors stage. As soon as Rurik caught sight of them he interrupted his father and beckoned them over.

"Halcyon, report!" he ordered.

"Your Highness, Prince Rurik, Sir Tydus," Malios began, "we found and captured one of those damn weapons just before the charr began firing again. On my orders Mhenlo and Cynn figured out how it works and destroyed the others before we destroyed that one. I know those weren't your orders Sir Tydus but I had to do something to stop the attack."

"I thank you my friend," replied the prince, "they had begun firing on the remains of the city and the bunker before they suddenly stopped."

"Yes, good work soldier," said the king, "Rurik we will continue this later" he finished as he began walking away, back towards the bunker.

"Prince Rurik is there any word yet from Fort Ranik?" asked Malios.

"Not yet," replied Rurik, "Mhenlo, Cynn, Devona and Aidan I want you to head to Rin and see what's going on over there. Malios, I can see that you want to head over to Fort Ranik but that will have to wait. I want you to accompany Sir Tydus and myself to try and find Duke Barradin and Lady Althea, but we will go in the morning, you need some rest and to get that arm seen to. Come; let us return to the bunker."


A.N. - short chapter I know but this seemed like a good place to leave it. Next we have the charr invasion.