The Mist and the Lightning. Part 13. Ви Корс

to get up, dragged him to the wall, sitting him in the destroyed arch. “Stay here,” he said and disappeared into the smoke, Kors bent over choking on a cough.

      When, closer to the afternoon, exploding lighters and red warriors stopped pouring into the breaches, Kors no longer believed in good things. Noticing movement near the stable, without hesitation, he immediately jumped up, drawing his sword.

      “Hey! Hush! That’s we!” They heard the voice of Lis, and he with several mercenaries of Kors, as if nothing had happened, entered the break of the wall from the side of the enemy. Unclean and soldiers from the training school of Daniel Crassus looked at them with wide eyes.

      “Where are you from?!”

      Lis laughed.

      “We went down from the wall along their own assault tower and just drove the reds across the field.”

      “Are you crazy?!”

      “Why are you taking such a risk?!” Kors couldn’t resist. He lifted his head up and looked at the wall, seeing that his mercenaries were also looking at them from above. Kors didn’t see his daughter among them: dressed as a man and with a closed face, she merged with the rest of the warriors. But she was probably there and worried about Lis, hoping that he returned to the fortress safe and sound.

      “Alis, why are you leaving the outer perimeter?!”

      “We wanted to help you, to distract the reds…”

      Lis didn’t have time to finish, at that moment, drowning out his words, quite close by, there was a deafening roar, and the ground trembled under their feet.

      “Fuck! This is from Ariel's side,” Lis shouted, “they managed to blow up this fucking sewer!”

      Unclean ones and people ran to the aid of Ariel Riel. Kors very clearly heard in his head how Nikto called Nija. It was a revelation to him.

      “Are you mentally talking to the unclean? Can you hear each other?!”

      “Yes,” Nikto answered simply.

      “They can communicate mentally, bypassing conversations and unnoticed by people! A whole secret world, and we consider them stupid animals,” thought Kors with horror, “and they turn out to be stronger than us!”

      Prince Ariel Riel, stunned and blinded by the explosion, tried his best not to lose his balance and stay on his feet. He was left without his beautiful, precious helmet with a golden mask, blood flowed down his temples, crimson streams framing his pale face, tense with pain. Many of his warriors were killed, thrown from the wall by a blast wave, heaped with stones, shell-shocked, but the survivors didn’t retreat. Lis with Kors’ mercenaries and the unclean ones quickly came to their aid, and no matter how hard the reds tried, they couldn’t get into the Fort. Those gaps that they managed to make in the wall were immediately under enhanced protection. For a day, the reds failed to break through the cracks of the old wall near the menagerie, although at first they threw all their main forces there. This time, deciding not to get involved with the unclean, since they only suffered losses, and the wall was strengthened even more each time, the red commanders decided to change the plan and try to blow up the sewer. But this tactical maneuver also didn’t work. The buried passage was blown out, but it was low and narrow, and the wall around and above it was strong, and it didn’t collapse, but only sagged a little, further creating the danger of collapsing on those who would make their way to the Fort along this dubious manhole and bury them under the collapse. When Atley Alis’ army of militias, mercenaries and unclean attacked Crimson Rock, the garrison inside consisted of no more than two hundred men. Lis’ cunning plan distracted them, and they simply couldn’t control and protect all points of the Fort, no matter how Digmer tried. Moreover, his opponent, and a friend in the past, knew all the weak points very well. In fact, only the village militias of Prince Arel suffered heavy losses. Professional warriors, mercenaries and unclean ones didn’t suffer so catastrophically.

      Things were different now. The Reds outside came from the Ore City and the surrounding area, there were a lot of them, and therefore they dashingly and not really thinking about the strategy, confident in their numerical and military superiority, without any tricks began an assault “head-on” and made a mistake in this, having lost many soldiers wasted. Because Lis had not two hundred fighters like Digmer, but almost a thousand and they were protected by walls, waiting for an attack and preparing for it. They had nowhere to retreat, they were alone here, and this hopelessness gave them strength. And if you face the truth, the black mercenaries of Kors, and even more so the unclean ones of Nikto, were not only very experienced warriors, but also had certain character traits. Because not everyone would go to fight in enemy territory, and for the sake of ghostly diamonds not everyone would stick themselves in the heat of reds. Thus, at the moment, Lis’ army consisted of the best adventurers for such purposes, and in fact reckless scumbags. Both unclean and people, no matter how Kors tried to present his warriors as noble ones.