The sound of artillery shelling the area continued all night, and then just after dawn, the sound of Frost Giant war horns blared across the north end of the valley, interrupting breakfast and causing the radio communications to go crazy.
Karl had left his earpiece out so that everyone could hear the radio during the night, in case the Frost Giants attacked early, but from the sound of the broadcasts, their reinforcements were just arriving.
The bunkers had greatly reduced their casualties last night, and with the addition of hundreds more warriors, the Frost Giants were preparing a charge on the south end of the valley, which would put them in position to flank the main army lines.
The problem for Karl and his team was that the shelling continued, so they couldn’t safely approach the Giants to get to work.
[Hawk, fly up and double-check the area, I want to be absolutely certain that nothing is trying to come down this valley before we leave.] He instructed.
First, Hawk flew south, to make sure that nothing got by them in the night, as unlikely as that was. Then he headed north up the valley, where only ten kilometres from the camp, he found a large group of the Giants in white building rock hurling siege weapons and building barricades.
Karl checked that against his map and found that the location should be the Golden Dragon Nation side of the neutral zone, or contested zone, between the two countries. The lake that was directly behind their barriers had been the boundary marked on the map.
The army almost certainly wouldn’t want to push that far, and if they were setting up artillery, the Frost Giants weren’t going anywhere. The river wouldn’t support the weight, and it was too much trouble to have to disassemble and reassemble them for half a morning’s march.
But as Hawk circled back, he saw that the group at the lake wasn’t the only one that was digging in for a long battle. On the other side of the ridge, the Frost Giants were building a massive ice fortification within their raging blizzard, visible to the keen eyes of Hawk only because they weren’t trying to hide it from the back.
Karl sent in the message, and got back a quick response. Not from the Battalion Commander, as he had expected, but from the main line’s regional Command.
{Please remain on site to secure the secondary valley against enemy incursion. Reinforcing troops have been delayed.} They informed him.
{Understood, we will be holding our monitoring position.}
Karl looked at the others and shrugged. “Well, we’re up the side of a hill, in the trees, where we can see half the valley. I would say that’s a good enough position for what they want, and we can just wait here where it’s warm.
Until we get other directions, Hawk and Rae can take turns watching for movement, and we can all stay well rested.
I know that we’re not military, so we can theoretically decline the order, but it wouldn’t hurt to wait here and see what happens next.”
Tessa laughed. “If we move and something comes down the valley to cause problems for them, you know that we’re going to hear it from the High Priests as well. They despise it when they get messages complaining about the actions of their clergy, and they’re already stressed by the current situation.
Lotus might be used to getting yelled at all the time, but I prefer to avoid it.”
Lotus giggled at the insinuation, but Tessa was right. She got yelled at on a fairly regular basis for getting side tracked when she wasn’t with a Green Dragon or other type of Nature Priest. They got side tracked just as much as she did.
The artillery never slowed, only staggered its rhythm so that the enemy wouldn’t find it as easy to predict. The sound carried through the mountain valleys, impossible to escape as the battle raged on.
The Frost Giants were active on the main line, charging forward to eliminate artillery emplacements and scout bunkers, but in their valley, the enemy line was stationary.
The big fear of everyone, both in Command, and in the fort with Karl, was that this was just a buildup. That the main line would get fully engaged, and that would be the signal for the troops that had built up along the secondary valleys to move into combat.
But they couldn’t put that over the radio, or they would be accused of trying to damage morale, so they had to wait and watch as the hours passed, and the two positions that they could scout remained patient and the battle along the main lines intensified.
At dark, Hawk returned to the fort to rest inside and out of the cold, while Rae went out to scout and made herself a secondary fort, up near the ridge and built into a tree. It kept the wind off her, and allowed her to see both the end of the valley and the main valley’s access route, though she couldn’t see the actual fortress built there.
It was enough to be able to see if anything was moving in their own zone, as the army already had scouts all over the hills lining the other valley.
To Rae’s eyes, the Frost Giants were the opposite of what most living things should be, a mass of cold in the distance, not freezing, but much colder than most living things. If the weather wasn’t so frigid, they would be hard for her to spot, as they would blend into the background temperature variation, but as it was, she was certain she wouldn’t miss them if they moved.
Near dawn, right when night patrols would be switching for morning patrols among the human armies, the radio reports of massive movement among the front lines began. The Frost Giants were beginning their full offensive, accompanied by ice magic enchanted boulders that smashed apart artillery wagons and brought area freezing magic with them that both damaged the infantry and caused blinding snow.
With the blinding snow, the rest of the forces couldn’t see what was coming for them, and the reports were rather grim, with an entire armoured battalion reported lost in the first hour.
That was seventy kilometres from where Karl and the others were, too far for them to do anything about it, but close enough that it made them paranoid about what might happen to their positions.
If the main line was breached or forced to retreat, that would put the unit under Commander Dalton behind enemy lines. That was not where an artillery Battalion wanted to be, and he would have trouble even retreating with such a large unit and so much heavy equipment.
[If they leave one behind, I want an artillery.] Thor announced, thinking of ways that he could pull one of the wheeled cannon batteries for long ranged combat.
[What’s this? You’ve gone for Tank position, and the Healer Role, and now you want to be artillery too?] Karl joked.
[Remi is just a tiny snake, how could she take up our ranged combat role all by herself? Well, by herself or with Hawk if he doesn’t have to scout.] Thor asked.
Hawk silently laughed at the thought of an overgrown afternoon snack becoming their ranged damage member, but refrained from saying anything that might make Thor sad. He was excited about helping, so Hawk let him have it.
Thor’s idea made good sense to Remi. She wasn’t even big enough to see over people, she had to hide in Karl’s armour or in her space just so she could see to cast her spells. If she was a flying snake, she could do like Hawk and target them from above, but her minor water control only allowed her to make simple appendages, not wings.
But one day she would be big, and then she would be able to see everything in her swamp.
[We just need to teach her a new skill, so she can see further. If she could find targets when they were further away, Remi could be our tiny blue artillery snake.] Hawk suggested, hoping to keep Thor happy even if they couldn’t get an artillery.
That didn’t sound like a bad idea to Remi. She just didn’t know how she was going to do it. Maybe if her water control was better, she might be able to sense what her blizzard was hitting, and then she could target more spells without needing to see them.
As an added benefit, she would know where everything in her swamp was. She just had to find someone who knew how to teach her that skill. Or have Karl torture one of the Frost Giants until they told him. The Frost Giants should know.
Only, nobody spoke Frost Giant.
Learning was hard, Remi decided.
