I closed my eyes and took another deep breath imagining it. 'Certainly not conventional tactics…' "I'll spend the next two days evaluating the students as planned, you can all handle the other preparations… Oh, but one more thing. Our arrows are all way too large and heavy. That's why they won't go through armor, we should have the smiths make some new ones."
"What…" Al said, somewhere between exhausted and exasperated.
"When it comes to going through armor the thing that matters more than anything is speed, not force." 'At least… That's how it works for bullets… I doubt anyone ever had strong enough bows to try this on earth…' "We need thinner arrows with pointed tips that don't catch the wind, And they have to be as light as possible. My brother can design them, and we can tell the smiths to produce them in mass with the time we have."
"You mean Airsidh?" Phily asked. "He was more than renowned as a bower a few years ago… But he hasn't done anything for a long time."
"He'll do it if I tell him to."
Bhaltair almost began laughing again, prompting her face to once again take on a look of slight shock.
"As for the magic… We should be able to cover the walls in dwarven Runes that resist it, right? Or maybe even our armor?"
I growled at another dead silence. "DOES NO ONE THINK OF THESE THINGS?"
Tabernath chuckled. "Well, the walls were built to repel monsters, not people. And very few monsters use magic, so there's no need to add resistance to armor. Either. Besides… Dwarven runes are a little too close to magic for most people's liking…"
'Oh, so now we acknowledge that it's totally magic…' I slowly sank my head down into my hands. "One thing at a time… First, we need Runes on the wall, they might have more than one powerful mage. Next, we need the ramps, at least two, and the mote, then up to four ramps, and then a dam, then construct the other four ramps. In that order. If there is time, then we can start having them add runes to our weapons to cut through magic defenses, and then our armor. Most of you can take magic without anything special anyway… Right, Bhaltair?"
He shrugged. "My men can at least…"
"Good enough for me…"
I closed my eyes again and suddenly my whole body went numb and I could see the whole city from a short distance. Menus and timers ticking on the progress of construction and research. Manna shot out from me and spanned across the whole city before coming back, and I got even more information. "The wall on the west side is old and cracked. We need to fix that, and the ground is unstable under the northwestern corner. Cave in the tunnel in that area and fill it in while we are building the mote."
Two more menus popped up.
"How do you even know that…" Al asked slowly.
'That's the question isn't it…' "My dragon eyes see a lot of things…" My voice suddenly started getting quieter, and as my nose started to bleed I quickly brought myself back to my body, wiping it clean. "If that's all… I think… I need to rest for a moment… I'll consult with the teachers later today, and then tomorrow I'll start to judge the students for myself…" 'I need to be careful… It's hard to regulate my manna when I'm using new spells like that…'
"Right uh… That sounds fine… We should get to work as well. Meeting adjourned." At Tabernath's command, we slowly trickled out and began our preparations.
'War… It's not just coming… It's here now… And people have already died… All of the commanders of the north… And a general too… All while our armies were what… Securing the capital city? Hunting monsters in a forest no one ever goes to? Crying shame… I saw this coming for months and when it arrives no one is even prepared…''
I met up with Kal and the other teachers, including those from the second tower. Together we decided on the top 200 students, give or take. Most were older, aside from a limited few exceptions like Lu, Mo, Bear, and a few of Lu's guild mates. There were some others too, but none I knew personally.
As for the students who were not gifted, we would determine who we could keep by having them spar with one of my sister's friends, who was pretty close to the level of one of Tabernath's soldiers, minus the military discipline, of course.
I spent the entire day overseeing similar spars, while Airsidh took note of anyone's archery abilities, having designed the arrows in a single night.
Before I knew it, and with great effort from many people… We had selected 84 students who were combat-ready. The other 116 were put in charge of making sure the other students didn't do anything stupid like try to sneak into the battle. An idea brought on by something Lu said…
Just like that, the morning of the third day arrived. I got up early and checked on the defenses. They were not done… Not that it was a surprise… But it certainly didn't make me less nervous. 'So that's 5 ramps, and the mote is dug, but we need another day to build a dam and reroute the river…'
I scratched my head, thinking through it. Mo's family had dealt with all the spies that we knew of, and I sent them out as scouts, so our workers were safe to keep working until they returned… But as the day dragged on I only became more nervous… Eventually, nothing came. 'A night attack?' I thought. Still nothing. The fourth day passed as well. 'They wouldn't have attacked the Capitol, right? Maybe they ran into some monsters? What would be delaying their travel times like this… No one should be fighting them, right? And monsters shouldn't be much of a problem to an organized legion.'
On the morning of the fifth day, all of our defenses were built, and we had extra time to even add layers of extra runes to our walls and blades, as well as the armor of the weaker soldiers. I.E mine.
Then, finally, the scouts returned. Many were worse for wear, but all of them alive, the enemy right on their heels.
'I feel like they misunderstood their mission…' I sighed. 'Well… Alright… Let's see what the empire's army is all about shall we…'
I mounted up, thankful I was in my dragon form, otherwise I would have surely vomited, and maybe not even have been able to stand. As I was thinking, all I could feel was excitement and anticipation. No one in history, on earth at least, had ever done something quite like what we were about to try… And there was a good reason for that… To an extent… But that made me all the more eager and nervous in kind, to see if it would actually work… If it didn't… Well… I could always hide in the abyss or something for a few days…
I finished riding Fritz up atop the wall and my breath stopped as a nervous fire rose in my throat, blowing steam out my nose. The view alone would have been breathtaking without the thousands of enemy soldiers setting up camp… But with them, I was struck with a certain sense of awe, and an even greater sense of guilt. 'As commander… I'm leading soldiers to their deaths… All in hopes I can kill someone… Just so we can kill more of them… All so that we can have an easier time killing… Weighing the value of units lost to gains used to be kind of fun… Then for a while, the idea made me sick… Now I just feel numb… I suppose that's a good thing though…