The Mortal Realms Strike Back

  "Maybe it uses psionics for the links?" suggested Saoirse as she peered through an arcane spectrometer they'd put together in one of the flying citadel's workshops, and which they were using to try and understand how the Shard formed its links. "That's why we can't detect anything?"

  "Maybe…" said Marci. "But that doesn't help much—there isn't much research done into psionics. At least, not on the surface."

  "Not so much in the Underworld either," said Saoirse. "Although there are a few famous psionics we could maybe consult with? We'd have to be careful though, most of them are aligned with the Infernal Council."

  "Who are… opposed to the Shardkeepers?"

  "Sort of?" said Saoirse. "Wary of? Unable to control? That might be better. They work together, to a degree, but they don't like each other."

  "I guess we'll have to," said Marci, rubbing her brow. "Alright, enough for today. Thanks Saoirse, you can go have a rest now."

  "Of course, Mis- Marci," said the demoness.

  The demoness left, and Marci was just about to put a ward on the doors to the Shard's room when the mind of one of the lookouts started cmouring for her attention. Marci's focus shifted, and she found herself staring through the eyes of an imp man who was pointing into the distance, where the western sun was slowly setting over the mountains.

  It was a bit difficult for Marci to make out, but there seemed to be shapes moving against the gre. A lot of shapes, even. A flock of birds…?

  "Dark Mistress, Gryphons!"

  With that knowledge, the mental picture shifted, and Marci suddenly saw what the imp had. Hundreds of gryphons, some carrying two, or even three riders, approaching at a breakneck pace towards the fortress. And not just that, she also caught the smaller, flitting form of fairies, their bodies gleaming with light mithril armour.

  An army.

  An army had come for her. From the look of it, a mustered coalition, even including her mother's forces. Her letter couldn't have reached her mother yet, she'd flown out to a nearby settlement the night beforehand and dropped it in a post-box, but clearly word of her attack on Saxmoor had spread far and wide, and she had provoked a massive backsh.

  "Battle stations! We have an incoming force of gryphons!" roared Marci in the minds of her demon army, even as she activated her skeletal soldiers positioned near the four entranceways. "Man the cannons; mages, defensive shields!"

  She, for her part, was already racing out of the throne room and down the corridors that led along and down and eventually out onto the battlements. She zipped over the heads of the demons that were rushing to obey, along with, she noted with no small degree of worry, several of the prisoners who she had liberated and pardoned, who were putting on newly constructed armour that they must have gotten the kobolds to make and rushing to her defence.

  She stopped and grabbed one of them, the blonde-haired Hildegard.

  "What are you doing?" said Marci.

  "Defending you, Dark Lady," she said, her hand shaking around the haft of a spear. "You saved my life, gave me a second chance. I don't care what they say, you've done more to earn my loyalty than the old Lord ever did."

  Marci stared at her without comprehension as she sort of saluted, and then raced off towards the battlements. Marci watched her go for several moments, before remembering that she was about to be attacked by an army, and shifted her focus back to that.

  Unlike the harsh daylight that she now found it uncomfortable to tolerate, Marci's eyes easily adjusted to gloom as she emerged onto the teeming battlements, as demons set up shield walls at the front and musket lines behind, kobolds adjusted and loaded cannons, and spellcasters of various tripes conjured defensive shields.

  With her own better-than-imp vision, she could see the full scope of the attacking force: roughly two hundred gryphons, and more fairies than she'd initially seen. They were catching up fast, despite the Dreadfort moving at a not inconsiderable speed away from them. The weren't quite in range of the cannons or most spells, but it wouldn't be long…

  She cut speed to the fortress, flexing the Shard in way that now felt natural and intuitive and deactivating the eldritch, incomprehensible engine that y below the Shard, and which Marci wasn't even sure if the kobolds, who had fixed it, actually understood. They seemed to work entirely intuitively—some kind of strange, natural magic unique to them.

  The Dreadfort slowed to a stop, the slight drain that the flight engines took from the influx of mana being sucked from the nd beneath abating, and filling more of the immense pool that was currently the rgest it had ever been.

  Without the Dreadfort's speed, the army quickly closed, and a few moments ter, spells began to fly, and with an immense series of booms the Dreadfort's cannons unched balls of iron which exploded as they flew, pelting the oncoming army with tiny shards of metal. Many of the bsts were caught by shields or armour, but some found gaps, and dropped a not insignificant part of the army as it charged forward through the air.

  Marci added her own spells to the mix, unching a crackling bst of lightning, a level four spell that she almost entirely dispensed with any conjured runes to cast, and which crashed into the shield an elvish mage had conjured, punched through, and sent him, his gryphon, and a few of his nearby comrades crashing from the sky as the energy arced between them.

  Marci winced. Part of her was appalled by what she had just done, but a growing part of her, the part that she worried about during the long hours alone, brushed it off.

  They are here to kill you, countered that part of her.

  Marci didn't know if that was a good retort. But that was ephemeral, because unless she went and shattered the Shard herself, there was nothing that was going to stop this battle.

  And maybe that was what she should have done. Maybe that should have been what she did the moment she woke up and realised what she was. Or at least, after she had rescued Of. But while Marci was many things, apparently a selfish coward was one of them, and she didn't want to die.

  So, she pushed aside her regret, and threw herself fully into the battle, conjuring up a powerful barrier that covered most of the battlement that faced the oncoming force, and which she could maintain while coordinating and directing the battle.

  It was strange. Back in the prison, she'd sort of left the demons aboard the fortress to do as they willed, retively confident that there were not enough attackers to overwhelm them.

  But now, she gave the defence every st ounce of her attention, watching from a hundred different sets of eyes and issuing orders directly into the minds of demons as the flying army broke into two wings, streaking around the side of the Dreadfort and looking for easier pces to nd on the northern, southern, and perhaps even western edges of the battlements that ringed the pyramid-like Dreadfort, rather than trying to punch through Marci's barrier.

  Marci snarled, and reached out for Jonda, who was on the northernmost side, and had been

  'Sorry, I need to-'

  "Of course, Mistress!" said Jonda as Marci assumed control of her body, raising the elf's hand and conjuring swirling runes around unching another lightning bolt that tore into the flying ranks, hitting several fairies and a gryphon rider, and then conjuring another powerful barrier to ward off the force that had been making for the Northern battlements.

  But Marci, even with her Shardkeeper's powers, could not focus everywhere at once, and before she could shift her focus and pick a demon on the southern battlements, the mortal forces had already nded.

  Like with the heroes, they came down with the gryphons, and it became a chaotic melee as the giant armoured bird-lions swiped and ripped and tore at the demon's lines. She advanced one of her skeletal squadrons with her mind, reinforcing the line as musket-shots cracked, spells whizzed, bdes fshed, and shields dented and splintered.

  For a moment, it looked like the southern battlement might falter, but then more demons began to arrive from within, shoring up the lines and turning it into a bloody stalemate, coating the battlements in thick red blood as the forces cshed. On the southern side she saw Of, Anke, and Tissa appear. Through the eyes of a pit fiend, Ms. Mulligan, she noted after a moment, she could see the indecision and unease on their faces, but then Of started to bark commands to the demons, all of whom were under the impression that he was one of her top lieutenants, and she let him take over. He knew much more about tactics and strategy, after all.

  For their parts, Tissa waded into combat and started spinning her two-handed bade around like a dervish, even as she loudly apologised and politely asked the mortal soldiers to surrender.

  Anke hung out near the back, as she always did, and took a few shots with her bow, but since she was primarily a healer, her choice wasn't just the fact that she was a massive selfish coward—not that Marci could really speak, anymore…

  Marci checked around, and after noting that most of the enemy's forces were engaged, began to redeploy, accompanying some of the demons from the western face to the southern, and a moved with a small force from the northern to the eastern.

  The force she took with her hit the southern elements of the mortal army in the fnk, and the immediately began to break and buckle. Numerically, they were few, but with a line of heavily armed demons focused solely on defence, and a Shardkeeper hurling magic like it was going out of style, Marci was a force to be reckoned with.

  She felt the battle began to shift, the tide begin to turn-

  'Mistress! Help! The prisoners…'

  Marci finished lobbing a fireball before turning her attention to the demonic mind that had contacted her. The rather timid incubus who was one of the only survivors of those who had cshed with the Heroes Party—Oliver. She had put him on guard duty, watching over the prisoners, in rge part because he really didn't seem to be cut out to be a warrior.

  But now his mind radiated pain and fear and confusion, becoming clearer as Marci focused and saw...

  Gillian freeing the heroes.

  "Come on!" roared the dwarf she had until that moment thought was one of her closest friends as he unshackled the heroes. "Quick sharp! 'fore that demon-luvver notices!"

  At his belt was his runed hammer, dripping blood from where he had cut through the guards. Including Oliver, who was terrible injured, lying on the ground and clutching his half caved in chest, wheezing as ahead of him cells opened, chains were divested, and weapons were passed out.

  "To the Shard, at the heart of the fortress!" shouted Gillian. "Let's end this!"