The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 173

PART 25

A week after releasing the Education spell they participated in the first joint void exercise involving the militaries of every nation on Kellaran.

It began in the void opposite the sun from the real demons where Mark and his family had tested their power. There they faced simulations of the demons' small rock world and every demon in it, all run by gods of Kellaran and The Triax. There was no way to know if the simulated demons' strength matched that of the real ones, but they faced more than eleven billion demons in the exercise. Only a hundredth of them were greater demons, and there were only a handful of DemonLords.

Only those with a combat score of five thousand or less were allowed to fight unrestrained. Those with more power than that were allowed to command, but were forbidden from using their own power in combat, and only allowed to fight with spelled swords and shields that they were issued by the organizers that gave an expert fighter a combat score of about fifty. No concentration of power or simulacrums were allowed. Every soldier fought with his or her own power and their own bodies, along with whatever spelled items and equipment they could procure. They were still allowed to co-ordinate their forces with a Command Link, and they would certainly have been quickly slaughtered without it.

After fourteen hours of battle they had only defeated half the demons, and had destroyed less than a tenth of the tunnels and caverns.

Then their enemy surprised them by Translocating to Kellaran, where they all started attacking two Clan-Holdings in a desert in the center of Kletiuk with a combined area equal to that of Venak, and two sizable cities.

The demons had their way of it in the beginning of the battle in the void, and Kellarani losses were heavy. The Kellarani were just adapting to the challenge and turning the tide when the battle moved to Kletiuk There the demons initially dominated the battle again, half of which was aerial and half was among the houses, buildings, tunnels, and underground caverns of the dwarves' semi-subterranean cities.

The battle's move to Kellaran did allow the Kellarani to bring much of their non-void-qualified fighters into the fray, and those reinforcements were sorely needed.

After another four hours the demons were losing badly again, so they retreated back to their rock in the void, where the battle continued in their tunnels and caverns for a final three hours.

When it was done, most of Kellaran's forces, over half the total population of the world, had been 'killed'. But all the simulated demons were dead. All the surviving void-qualified forces were so bone-tired that they were almost asleep on their feet, so reviews and evaluations of the exercise were postponed for ten hours.

Mark and his family cheered like maniacs like all the rest when their victory was declared, but as soon as they arrived on the Royal Beach at Hilia and Sent their armor home their bodies and expressions drooped like flags when the wind dies. As the tension of battle and the brave face they presented for the troops drained from them, Mark sat down hard on the sand, almost letting himself drop, and leaned back on his arms with his legs spread, letting his chin fall to his chest and his eyes close. Val burst into tears and ran into Alilia's arms.

Alilia picked up her crying daughter and sat with her on Mark's left thigh, and leaned exhaustedly against his torso. Talia sat on his right thigh with Fire on the left side of her lap and Six on her right, and they all cuddled together. Both her children had tears rolling down their faces, but they kept their composure otherwise as they tried to comfort Val, who continued crying whole-heartedly.

Karz lay down on the sand curled around them and against them, Povon curled around him, and Kragorram curled around her. Dragons don't cry, but the same emotions were plain in their behavior. Occasionally they gave each other or the small folk they encircled a gentle and reassuring caress.

Finally Fire spoke, her voice still shaking and choked with emotion. "That was absolutely horrible. The Triax were right, none of the simulations we ever fought before ever really fought like demons. So vicious. So horrible. There was a moment when they first got right in among us, and this demon had a sword it'd taken from someone and it still had demon-fire and spells because it was using them when it had to. But when it killed the Sylvan right beside me it didn't use any of that. It exposed itself to considerably greater risk to get in close enough to grab her by the hair at the back of her head and sink its teeth into her lower jaw and throat and rip it all out. And it ate it, so the Healing just heals her up without it, which was pretty ugly. She was still physically combat capable, but she was so traumatized by it that she couldn't fight anymore, and she just let the demon kill her a second later. I was so horrified that I just looked at it for a moment, until it almost killed me and I snapped out of it."

There was silence for a few seconds, then Talia spoke. "When we took Quewanak's training the first time, in a dream, we were still far below the five thousand limit. Even when we finished it we were. We've come a long way since then, largely thanks to you children. They'd have let us really fight today if we were still like that. But now..." She paused and shrugged. "A lot of those I was commanding would have given their teeth for a sword and shield with enough spells in them to give the power of fifty Smingan Journeyman Battle Wizards. I could see them looking on with envy as I fought. But I felt so completely crippled. Watching those I commanded dying while I refrained from saving their lives was heartbreaking, and the most frustrating thing I've ever faced."

"Truly." Alilia nodded. "This was the very first time in my life when I've been in a training exercise, and found it extremely difficult to keep in mind that it was, after all, only an exercise. I failed to maintain my objectivity or to control my emotions on several occasions. And that's putting it as politely as possible."

"It seemed completely real in Quewanak's dream training, except a minute or two between exercises." Mark commented. "We really thought we were in battle. But there was always that slight air of unreality that even the most real-seeming dream has. And we never had to hold back. This wasn't like that at all."

"I'm not even sure how much of the exercise was real, and how much was simulated." Povon stated with a slight edge of anger. "I don't think we were ever really in Kletiuk today. I think the organizers had us completely fooled, including re-directing our Translocations without us realizing it. That's a bit scary, but that's gods for you, I guess. The pain of the injuries we took sure seemed real enough."

"I faltered completely!" Val sobbed. "There was these two brigades of Sylvan, about a hundred thousand of them, and apparently their officers had lost their nerve and were refusing to follow orders while we were in Kletiuk. For some reason I was sent to straighten them out and lead them in this assault they were supposed to do.

"So there's this huge grain warehouse with all these distribution tunnels leading down with rails in them for carts of grain, and it was one of the primary defense points for the civilians of the city. The demons had breached the warehouse, and the dwarves had fallen back to secondary defense points at the ends of the tunnels where there were big grated iron portcullises and they could direct a lot of fire at the demons who were restricted by the narrow tunnels.

"We were supposed to retake the warehouse and kill all the demons inside there and in the tunnels before they could break through any of the portcullises and get loose among the civilians of the city.00000

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