The third shot did its job.
The beam carved through the horde again, erasing everything in its path. The cleared space persisted longer this time- whether from the monsters learning caution or simple luck, Leon couldn't tell. Good thing too, because the muzzle was glowing an ominous red, metal warping at the edges.
His engineering had fallen short.
The hastily made cannon wasn't capable of holding out. Leon could see the stress fractures forming along the barrel, the stone around the formation cracking from repeated thermal shock. He'd needed more time to test it, to add cooling mechanisms, to reinforce the structural integrity.
He'd needed a lot of things he didn't have.
The soldiers picked up the mantle instead. With the gate momentarily clear, they surged forward into the killing ground. A cacophony of stabbing, shielding, and screams took over. The battlefield broiled under the stars, a writhing mass of desperate humanity fighting against endless alien flesh.
How long had it been since the start?
An hour? Eight?
Leon couldn't tell anymore. Time had lost meaning somewhere between the first tower falling and the third shot. All the wars he'd ever known, he'd read about in books or watched on screens. His world had never truly been peaceful- history was a catalog of conflicts, of violence and suffering documented from safe distances.
But he'd never been in any war himself.
Now that he was witnessing a form of it, living inside it, breathing its smoke and smelling its dead, he thanked whatever luck or circumstance had kept him away before.
The fourth tower went silent.
Not surprising. Potions and breaks could only do so much. The mages up there had been fighting continuously for... how long? Leon had lost track. They'd done everything he'd asked of them and more.
Below, the soldiers rotated. The injured were carried off to the medics- those who could still be saved. Fresh, more rested soldiers joined the line, stepping over bodies to take their positions.
Were the four still alive? Finn, Torren, Marcus, Jace?
Leon scanned the battlefield, trying to pick out individuals in the chaos. Impossible. They were just part of the mass now, lost in the press of bodies and steel.
He hoped his quack blessings would hold out this once. That they would keep the boys safe. He had no heart to face their mothers otherwise. No words that could possibly suffice.
Sometime during the battle, the Sword Saint had withdrawn. Leon hadn't seen it happen - one moment she was there, a bright point of deadly grace, and the next she was gone. Back to protecting the king, probably. Her duty fulfilled.
Now it had devolved into a war of attrition. Numbers against numbers. Swords against claws. Men against monsters.
Time ticked on. Mages recovered and rejoined the fight, cycling through formations with mechanical efficiency. The battle had rhythm now, a terrible cadence of death and survival.
How much longer was this going to last? How long had it been?
Leon wondered, staring at the horizon. Sunrise wasn't coming. The sky stayed resolutely dark. Stars still visible through the smoke.
Had time stopped? Was he dead already, trapped in some eternal moment of horror?
A new wave darkened the gate.
The soldiers were too engaged to pull back, locked in melee with the current press of creatures. If that wave hit them now, they'd be overrun. Crushed under the weight of fresh monsters while they were exhausted and committed.
"MAGES, POSITIONS!" Leon shouted, his voice raw.
The response was immediate. The surviving mages moved to the formation- slower than before, stumbling with exhaustion, but still moving. They took their positions around the cannon.
The charge built up. Leon could feel it even from his position at the aiming mechanism - a wrongness in the air, a pressure.
The cannon was flaring up, glowing red-hot. The metal of the muzzle was visibly warping now, sagging at the tip. Cracks spider-webbed across the stone.
Hold. Hold, please.
Leon aimed at the gate, at the fresh wave of nightmares preparing to pour through.
He fired.
The result was like before- the beam lancing out, clearing the monsters at the gate, buying precious relief for the soldiers below.
But there was a problem.
The cannon had started melting at the tip, metal running like wax. And the formation circle was still active. Still channeling... something. Energy that had nowhere to go with the muzzle compromised.
The mages were backing away, horror dawning on their faces.
The circle kept building power. The lines carved into stone blazed brighter and brighter, turning from blue-white to harsh, burning white. The air above the formation rippled with heat.
Leon knew instinctively that it was going to blow.
And it would take out everyone on these walls.
"RUN!" someone shouted.
As if that wasn't obvious, Leon thought with a hysterical edge to his inner voice.
But there was no chance of that. Even jumping over the wall wouldn't get them far enough away in time. The energy building in that formation could level a city block. Maybe more.
As the war raged behind him, as soldiers fought and died and the monsters kept coming, Leon thought how amusing it was that the High Archmage would be taken out by a sort of suicide. A weapon of his own making.
Would he be remembered as a clown? Or would the story be twisted again, turned into some tragic tale of a hero whose power was too much for him to bear?
He stretched out his hand resignedly and touched the building ball of energy.
It was almost at critical mass, ready to blow, and-
The ball of magic disappeared.
No. Not quite.
It flowed. Into his arm. Through his skin like water through a sieve, the energy draining from the formation in a rush that made Leon's vision white out.
The area went calm.
The formation died. The lines on the stone stopped glowing, leaving only smoke rising from the carved channels and the smell of superheated rock.
Leon looked at his hand. It looked normal. Felt normal.
He looked around.
The mages stared at him, frozen. Their faces bore expressions of shock, confusion, and something approaching religious awe.
Lord Casimir stood at the far end of the rampart, mouth open, words apparently failing him.
Even some of the soldiers below had noticed, turning to look up at the walls where a magical explosion should have killed dozens but somehow... hadn't.
Leon met their eyes, one after another, all of them thinking the same thing he was thinking:
What the hell?