The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 55

Part 11

"What are you laughing about?" Helemia teased. "You've been legally adopted by Kragorram and Povon, so you're a prince of Serminaki Draconia through your father, and a prince regent of Serminak through your mother. But you can't call me Your Highness because our positions aren't hereditary, and you can't say I'm the princess of anything because I'm not the ruling monarch, the way Alilia is The Princess of The People of Life. I'm just a princess of Hilia. Our titles are just a courtesy, and we only get to use them as long as our parents still rule."

"Wouldn't you inherit the rule of Hilia?" Karzog asked.

"We'd inherit all the land, and all the buildings and stuff in Hilia, and our house here, because our parents bought it outright with their own money and with contributions, none of which came from taxes. But we wouldn't inherit their political rule unless they explicitly say so, and designate one of us as their heir. I doubt they'll do that, they'll probably do the elven thing and let the people decide who'll rule after they're gone. I think they'd even step down if the citizens demanded it, but that's about as probable as the sky turning pink."

"Still, it's a fine thing, I think." Karzog grinned. "I've never thought of myself as a prince before."

"We've gotten distracted." Reggie pointed out. "As I was going to say, now that they've built all the shelters and emplacements, I'd bet that the next time they have war games they'll have a full community drill, and everyone will take their kids to the shelters like it was a real attack. I bet Quewanak will do it by surprise too, probably in the middle of the night, instead of at their regular training time. He might even do it tonight just to surprise the four of us, since he already knows that we're planning on joining the exercises. The grownups will probably put us in as reserves and observers, so if we pick the right moment, we can give everyone a good surprise.

"First we have to familiarize ourselves with all the exercises they've had before. In order to keep the training advancing, Quewanak and Ria always have their demons come up with a way to counter whatever the grownups do. Usually a spell or a tactic only works one to three times before 'the demons' figure out how to counter it, so we need to know everything they've learned to counter already, and plan some stuf they haven't seen before. And we only have an hour till suppertime.

"Here's the Reading I got from Father about it last night."

Their verbal conversation ended as the four of them were Linked by the twins.

Surprisingly, the demons that Quewanak simulated for the community exercises were distinct from the ones that Ria simulated for their family training every evening, and they used different methods, even though Ria assisted Quewanak with the larger exercises.

In the early stages of the war games, the demons had attacked by flight, giving the community plenty of warning when they were detected approaching over the horizon. Later they came up out of the sea at the perimeter of the archipelago, then from the channels in the heart of the islands. Then they'd appeared through Gates that appeared at the periphery of the community, and lately they'd been Translocating into the heart of the community in packs.

In the beginning, the demons had been vulnerable to the warcraft that had been developed in the War of The Founding of The Just Alliance six years previously, or eight weeks previously in real time. Most effective was Alilia's Circle, a spell based on Karbak's Needle, which allowed the caster to concentrate an incredible amount of Force onto an area no wider than a human hair, and penetrate the Shielding, armor, and skull of an enemy. Mark had improved and automated that spell, and Alilia had added the innovation of having the needle of Force curve into a tiny circle and spin around a bit after it reached the enemy's brain. Automated versions of the spell could be cast by the thousands, and it was very efficient in its use of power, but the demons had eventually found a way to harden their Shields enough to block it. That brought the contest back to more conventional methods; overwhelming the enemy's Shields with massive and concentrated power, devising new spells that used different kinds of energy from what they'd used against the demons previously, and physical attacks including fire, muscle-powered weapons with magical enhancements, and Movement-driven weapons that varied from darts to boulders. The demons also developed new techniques, and their latest was the ability to cast Demonfire in a very fast, very narrow stream for almost two kilometers. It's properties not only caused burns that were almos impossible to heal and whose pain didn't fade when they were healed, it also burned hot enough and long enough to set fire to almost anything flammable, and it was very difficult to extinguish.

When the demons had attacked over the horizon, the community had built defensive emplacements in the tops of mountains near the periphery of Hiliani. These were hollows in the rock with no physical entrances, equipped with Translocation Plates, dense Shielding, permanent Viewing spells on the walls to allow those within to see out with any chosen level of magnification, and an arsenal of automated defensive and attacking spells. They were stocked with food, water, weapons, items with pre-cast spells in them, and charged power batteries. The batteries were usually diamond, because more power could be stored in a given weight of diamond than in an equal weight of any other material, and they had many of them available since the twins had announced the location of their find. Hidden in the rock on the surface were various kinds of artillery weapons and spells. As the demons' attacks had begun from places closer and closer to the community, further emplacements had been built all over the islands, along with shelters that had been excavated deep beneath the surface in the stone of the islands, also with no physical entrances.

There were also networks of two-way Wards cast all over the islands, constantly charging but not activated until they were needed. If the demons attacked from without, they were layered defenses, and if the demons Translocated within them before they were activated, they were containment and traps.

The Reading gave the four youngsters a lot to think about, but they still took the time to make some basic plans and review some spells before they went home for supper.

Just less than four hours after midnight that night, a huge slavering demon appeared in their bedroom with a blood-chilling scream and a stomach-turning stench, and raised its club to strike down at them on the bed. The three children screamed even as they struck at it with psionics and spells, but they were Translocated out by Mark before they could see the results of their counter-attack.

They appeared in a cavern in black rock shaped like a low dome with a flat floor, over forty-six meters wide and fifteen meters high in the center. It obviously served as both the community's main shelter and their command center. Around them among rows of simple beds were the village's other children, and the adult non-combatants who were mostly older human women. Around the perimeter of the cavern were full silos of food, huge barrels of water, and pens for their animals, which had been Translocated in by Povon and Equemev along with the children. In the center of the room beneath a bright cone of light was an oval table over seven meters long with a scale model of the Hiliani archipelago on it. Around the table were their parents, Yazadril, Povon, and Equemev, who were obviously the command group this time. Everyone was still in their nightclothes, but over the next second the adults present donned arms and armor by Translocating it onto their bodies. All around them the other children were screaming and crying, and Sana and the other women immediately set to calming them and checking them for injuries.

The twins and Valentia calmed themselves in a moment and Linked with Karzog, who was eighteen meters away on the far side of the situation table. They immediately moved as surreptitiously as possible as close to the table as they could get without bothering the adults. As they did so, they passed through a spell that blocked the sounds and spells at the table from the surrounding non-combatants, and realized this was done to avoid frightening the children any further.

Meanwhile, Yazadril had called out; "I have command!" and cast on the table, even as Mark yelled; "Quewanak, is this a drill?!!"

"Not now, I'm busy." was Quewanak's hurried psionic reply, which they heard as Yazadril's spell on the table became active.

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