By any account, the small group of hostile Harvesters…or teens who were under twenty, anyway, didn’t really seem intimidating to Gaius after what he’d witnessed at the battle at the Southern or Central capital. But it seemed that no one else shared the same sentiments as he did — Winston was clearly nervous, judging by the tempo at which he tapped on the wooden table in front of him. A map of the local geography was laid out on, as well as four wooden sticks, three of them aligned against the last one.

Gaius glanced at the nervous Warmaster, before he realised that he didn’t know whether to address him as ‘Warmaster Winston’ or ‘Warmaster Chamberlain’. He was the first person he’d come across with a last name, after all.

Putting that stray thought out of his mind, Gaius turned to look at the others in the room. Campmaster Nalus was tapping his foot in the tent as he looked at the map, clearly intent on finding out some critical weakness of the enemy or some geographical advantage he could abuse the hell out of.

The other staff officers were no better, which each of them displaying one or two odd tics or so. In short, the whole place was a powder fuse ready to go, waiting for that one fool to stumble on his words.

“No changes to the plan, then.” Nalus finally broke the silence. “A general defence of the area will do. The objective is the same — prevent the enemies from scaling the walls.”

The first wave had been a probing attack, one where the two sides exchanged fire from afar. There wasn’t really anything to it, but when Gaius stood on the walls, he could feel a shuddering sense of dread as the two sides continued to take potshots at each other. Few shots were finding purchase, but that just worsened the palpable dread that was surrounding the high walls. After ten or so minutes of firing, the humans withdrew, dragging back a handful of casualties.

“It won’t be that easy the second time, though,” said Winston. “They’ll definitely send out their full force for round two.”

“I know. I’ve rotated out the troops on the wall to serve as the reserve force for now.”

Bugles broke the silence once again. Everyone filed out of the tent and made their way onto the walls. Two solid bodies of troops were marching towards the fortress, causing Gaius to narrow his eyes at that sight.

“Only two contingents,” murmured the little boy. “The last one has been split up, it seems.”

Behind him, Winston Chamberlain had started to bark out orders. Unlike the previous probing attack, the enemies were marching in a slow cadence, clearly confident of the defences that protected them as they marched onwards.

“Fire!”

A massed volley of qi hurtled towards the contingent on the left, and a translucent screen lit up in response. Ripples appeared in mid-air, much like raindrops falling on a puddle of water, only to vanish afterwards. Dismay rippled through the defenders as the combined attack failed to cause any visible damage.

The little boy frowned. It was entirely possible the enemy wasn’t shrugging this assault off as easily as it seemed, but looks were everything in battle. Gaius took out his Moonshot, and removed the false cover under the barrel. The artefact extended as he pressed the button, the fingers on his left hand flickering the whole time to draw a couple of sigils.

The others around him jumped in surprise as the weapon lengthened, but he paid no heed to them. A wildfire sigil arrayed itself in front of the Moonshot’s barrel, and without sending more than a second to aim, the boy pulled the trigger. The sigil winked out with a spark as the bullet passed through it — Gaius was using these odd shapes to augment his attacks, rather than using them physically.

There was a light jerk, as a small box ejected itself out from the artefact’s mysterious inwards, but no one was in the mood to care about that now.

The screen in front of his target lit up as the Moonshot’s projectile smashed into it. A solid thump resonated around the area, sending a blast of wind that whipped snow up into the air. For a moment, the barrier looked like it could hold, but these expectations were ruined the moment a small spark bloomed into a giant ball of fire.

Screams rent the air as the flames engulfed everything in its wake.

The fireball vanished as quickly as it came, but the ones closest to the point of impact had been charred black. It wouldn’t have much of an impact against Squires, whose bodies were strong enough to withstand a moment or two’s worth of high temperatures, but the visual impact was devastating.

Charred clothes stood out in the snowy-white world of Heritage, and the sight of cheers erupted from the high walls. Gaius nodded to himself. That single shot had redressed the imbalance in morale, and inflicted some light disarray to the enemy ranks. The shooting resumed, but with at a cadence that reminded the little boy of hailstones falling in a harsh winter.

Slamming in another purple cube, the power source for any reusable artefact, Gaius took aim again and pulled the trigger. This time, multiple sigils winked out at once, creating a fireball half the size of the makeshift fortress. Charred corpses were lying on the floor when the flames cleared. Gaius could hear the Harvesters on the wall hissing at the sight, and the gaze from those behind him were particularly scorching.

Half a second passed in shock, and as Gaius fired off his third shot, two people flew out of the enemy troops with sigils of their own trailing them. All of them winked out at once, creating a translucent violet wall that intercepted the incoming attack.

An unpleasant screech entered Gaius’ ears as the seemingly unbreakable shield defended against the unblockable shot. A spark of blinding light shone at the point where shot met shield, sending almost everyone facing the barrier into a state of temporary blindness as the eye-piercing light reflected off the now.

Gaius, like the others, was forced to shut his eyes, but he hadn’t lowered the Moonshot. Without waiting for his sight to clear, the boy fired again, and the blinding light subsided.

The shield had shattered with his second round, leaving two particularly angry Knights staring at Gaius. Before anyone else could react, the two put on a burst of speed, attempting to get close to Gaius before he could fire out any more shots. The Moonshot collapsed into its handgun form again, while the little boy whipped out his silver knife.

“They’re coming!”

Winston barely had time to yell out a warning, before a terrific shockwave sent most of the Harvesters near Gaius flying.