Chapter 492: Reconnoiter and Plan

“Three more battalions have been pulled in from the east and west flanks to reinforce the city,” Severina reported. “Most of the Demons along the river have been pulling back from their attacks and are now focused on pushing straight into Glanum. General Voss is directing most of the reinforcements to attack from the east side of the city, but another full battalion should be coming this way within the next ten minutes.”

Jay nodded along, paying full attention to the information Severina was providing while also keeping her eyes on the battle. Her Dys and Syd selves were in the thick of the demonic horde, striking down the strongest enemies she could find amidst the rabble filling the market square. Wherever a dead head or a simulacrum showed its face, she would leap at them with both of her bodies, cutting them down before they could get anywhere near the soldiers. Unless Noll got to the Demon first.

“Easier for us to hammer them,” Jay said as she tapped the head of her maul against the tiles of the roof. “They aren’t crossing the river anywhere else?”

“They are crossing the river everywhere,” the Seraphim shook her head. “They go under the water and come up on the southern shore. However, the defenders have fortifications that make it difficult for the Demons to find any purchase, so they are being repelled easily enough elsewhere. The bridge the prince has made has given them the foothold they need to invade in numbers. So long as that great serpent stays where it is, they will continue to flood the city.”

“Hold on,” Aila interrupted, a look of disbelief on her normally composed features. “Did you say prince? Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Severina answered, her expression serious as stone. “I am certain. Aelius has True Sight. He saw the Demon’s class. Demon Prince Vinea. There is no doubt.”

“That’s really fucking bad,” Jay said as she looked back and forth between her two lovers. “It’s bad, right?”

“It’s a Demon Prince, Jay,” Aila released a shaky breath. “Demons who are second only to the Demon Lord. They are the sorts of creatures that legends are written of. The sort of creature you need the Hero to kill.”

“We don’t need the Hero to kill it,” Severina stated with righteous certainty, her eyes turning in the direction of the massive wyrm. “But it would help immensely to have him here. Demon Princes are truly powerful foes. However, we can’t miss this opportunity. We must slay the Prince.”

While Jadis still had a lot of gaps in her knowledge when it came to Oros, mostly its culture and history, she had been using as much of her spare time as she could to learn about Demons. Considering one of her lovers and the mother of her first child was a “Spawn of Samleos” she felt it behooved her to study all the available books on the subject she could find. In her limited readings, Demon Princes were described as powerful creatures that stood above both Greater Demons and even Matriarchs. They were few in number but were some of the deadliest foes the Heroes of past cycles faced.

And yet, despite their immense strength, Demon Princes rarely attacked the front lines. The stories Jadis had read almost always described the Princes as being found deep in Demon-controlled territory. Like commanders controlling the demonic armies from the back lines.

Or valuable resources that had to be protected.

“Agreed. We shouldn’t ignore a chance to kill this thing,” Jay nodded. “It’s still in the same spot? It isn’t moving?”

“It doesn’t need to,” Severina explained. “Here, let me show you.”

The three of them were standing on top of a flat roof that was one building back from the structure that Aila had destroyed with her arcane explosion barrage. The soldiers that Thea had led up the street had already turned the dead karkinos and rubble into a solid fortification that gave them elevation over the mire hounds and other Demons that were attacking. It was lower on the east side than it was on the west side, but even at its shortest the wall of rubble and dead crab gave them seven feet of height over the swarming Demons. Using the debris as a wall, the soldiers were able to strike down at the attacking enemy, giving them a significant advantage. The bodies of the mire hounds were starting to build up again, giving the Demons a ramp up, but the army was well aware of the danger there and the wizards who had washed away the filth earlier were already preparing to cast the spell again.

Thea, Bridget, and even Meli, were at the front of the line, striking down the Demons side by side with the soldiers. Jay kept track of them as well, just to make sure they weren’t caught by something dire like an essence leech, but she trusted them to know their limits. If they needed to back off from the front line to rest, they would. So, knowing that they were safe, Jay turned her attention onto the simple map Severina was making.

Using little bits of stone and other detritus, the paladin had outlined a three-way intersection, indicating that the wall opposite the leg of the T was Glanum city wall.

“This is the Prince,” Severina said as she placed a dark stone slightly off center to the east of the intersection. “The lesser Demons are swarming out in all three directions. Right here, though, is a Matriarch.”

Sev set a smaller dark stone in the middle of the intersection.

“A Dead Head Matriarch,” Severina answered the unspoken question. “It is using its magic to hold that intersection clear as well as protect the Demon Prince. Any who come near are being struck by long-range arcane spells. Vinea is also a caster, with an apparent focus on stone magic. It has created defensive walls and pillars around its head. While it does not appear to be capable of long-range spells, its defensive capacity is high. Our own ranged attacks, both spells and conventional, are being blocked and deflected at every turn.”

“What about its body?” Jay asked. “That’s a pretty big target.”

“There are dead heads all over its back, acting as both an attack and a defense. There are also at least three Greater Demons. One is called Shrieking Cur and is some variation on a mire hound. It is staying near the intersection and has been using hit-and-run tactics, never staying in one spot for long. The other two I have no names or information for. Aelius was not able to scan either with his True Sight and I have not seen them myself. One is capable of long-range piercing attacks, though, and is protecting the Demon Prince’s body. Possibly a variation of the Simulacrum. The other has been staying in the shadows and attacking weak points, using the back alleys and building interiors to get behind our lines. Likely either an essence leech or a scythe wight.”

As she spoke, Severine placed more stones on her small map to represent the approximate positioning and number of high-threat targets, including the arched back of the huge wyrm spanning the river.

“What about the tail end?”

“The tail?” Aila asked, her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“They probably wouldn’t expect an attack from behind,” Jay said as she tapped the part of the map that represented the far side of the river. “I could cross and hit the Prince on its tail end. I could do a lot of damage, maybe even force it to pull its face out of the wall. You and the other Seraphim could support me over there, couldn’t you Sev?”

“Not a chance,” Aila interrupted before Severina could answer. “Your armor has been destroyed, and you’ve already used up your emergency healing. It would be recklessly idiotic to put yourself in the middle of that demonic army, all alone, with no quick way to get out again.”

“I agree,” Severina nodded her blonde head at the arcanist. “You would be too exposed. Besides which, I believe there may be either a Greater Demon or a Demon Matriarch on the other side of the river as well. Possibly the mire hound Matriarch. I haven’t been able to fly close enough to know for sure, but I can promise you that the rear of the Prince is more protected than you think.”

“Alright, bad idea,” Jay dismissed the plan. It was only a thought, and her two very tactical lovers had poked enough holes in the idea that she saw no point in pursuing it further. “If we can’t hit it from behind, or the flanks because of the river, then all we can do is go full force, right at its head. The army has elites, right? Can we get any to help us in an all-out assault?”

“Possibly. Even with the reinforcements, the lines are being stretched thin due to the sheer number of Demons. There are many small streets woven between the buildings, and soldiers have to be stationed to block any attackers from using them to flank our main forces. I believe I can bring Aelius, Tacitus, and Noct. The stymphalia have been mostly dealt with. Others are less certain.”

“Well, Noll has our back, so that’s like five elites right there,” Jay said as she glanced in the direction the therion had been last seen.

“If we focus on the Dead Head Matriarch, and the two Greater Demons in the city, the Demon Prince will be much more vulnerable,” Aila tapped the three stones representing those targets. “I say we move in and strike those three with our own hit-and-run maneuver. If we kill them, the regulars will have a much easier time pushing the mire hounds back and it’ll make our assault against the Prince safer.”

“Good point,” Jay nodded her agreement. “Do you have any reserves left?”

“Not really,” Aila said as she held up her magic canteen and shook it. “Almost completely out. I just took some magic replenishment potions, though. They should help get me back up to a few hundred points over the next couple of minutes.”

“Okay, then you stay here for now. I’m going to go get Eir, Alex, Sabina, Sorcha, and Kerr. They’re still back at the four-way and we need them closer. And I’ll let Tegwyn know what’s going on. Hopefully they’ve made good progress on their side of the road.”

“They have,” Severina said as she spread her wings. “I’ll go gather the other Seraphim and let General Voss know what’s coming. He may be able to route a few more elites to support us.”

“Take me down closer to the fight,” Aila asked as the angelic paladin took off into the night sky. “I’ll let Thea, Bridget, and Meli know about the plan.”

“Good,” Jay said, taking a moment to flip her helm’s visor up and give the redhead a kiss. “Thank you for blowing up a building for me.”

“Anytime,” Aila smirked. “If I wasn’t so worried about you dying, I’d say that it was kind of fun.”

“Damn right it is,” Jay grinned before clicking her helm back into place. “Now let’s get this shit done.”

As Jay carried Aila down to a spot where she would be able to reach the other three women who were manning the barricade, Dys and Syd pulled out of the raucous melee. The timing was good, as the water wizards were just starting to cast their deluge spell again, and she really didn’t want to be in the middle of the sludge wave a second time. It had been one seriously difficult struggle to stand against that tide of muck the first time. Jadis didn’t feel like going through a repeat performance, especially since she could still feel the mud and other gunk sloshing around inside of her underclothes.

Gathering her three selves together, Jadis raced back south towards the four-way intersection where the rest of her companions would still be located. Rather than running up the street, she raced along the roof tops since the road was filled with soldiers making their way north and she didn’t want to get in the way. Dead Demons littered the ground, but there were also signs of imperial losses as well. Men and women were carrying stretchers with injured soldiers between them, and some of them looked too far gone to be saved. When Jadis’ bodies reached the northwestern building overlooking the intersection, she saw that there was a stack of corpses piled up on one side of the southwestern building where Eir and Cora were providing healing. Not everyone wounded in the fighting had lived long enough to make it to life-saving magic.

Looking around, Jadis noticed that the Tegwyn’s team and the soldiers who had gathered around him had pushed the Demons invading from the eastern front much further back than she had hoped. The shield wall was at least a thousand feet further down the street, and it looked like they were still making progress. The therions who had been shooting arrows down at the Demons from the rooftops had also moved, helping the soldiers on that front keep up the pressure. However, one absence Jadis did not expect was Kerr.

“Where did she go?” Jay murmured aloud as she noted that her therion lover wasn’t on top of the four-story building anymore.

As her other eyes scanned the area, she noticed that Alex, Sabina, and Sorcha weren’t in the windows of the second story anymore, either. In fact, while there were a lot of stretcher-bearers gathered around the front entrance of the building, none were going inside despite the wounded soldiers they were carrying. Some were even breaking away to race up the street to the much further away temples around the base of the city tower.

“That’s not a good sign,” Dys growled as she followed her other selves in leaping down to where the crowd was gathered.

Even before she pushed her way past the soldiers to get to the front of the building, Jadis could hear the shouting. Some of the voices raised were unfamiliar to her, but others were intimately so. And the things they were saying did not make Jadis happy.

“I told you stupid fucks that she’s with us! Haven’t you read any of the proclamations!? The emperor fucking pardoned her!” Kerr shouted, almost screaming with rage.

“It’s a Demon!” an unfamiliar woman’s deep voice shouted back. “These are wounded men! I will not allow this abomination anywhere near them! Get out of the way you brainless cur!”

“Please, calm down,” another unfamiliar voice, this time a man. “The Demon has been protecting—”

“Silence! Even if the filthy creature was pardoned, I won’t risk it—”

“What the fuck is going on in here!?” all three of Jadis shouted as she forced her way inside the building. Her commanding voices overwhelmed the noise made by everyone else, causing the room to fall silent. “And who’s the fucking moron talking shit about my Alex?”

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