Chapter 341: Repairs

Kael remained beside the reforged cannon for several moments, one gauntleted hand resting against its dark barrel.

The distant hill was still burning.

Orange flames crawled across its ruined slope, visible even beneath the night sky. Smoke rose in a thick column while fragments of stone continued tumbling down what remained of the hillside. The soldiers around Kael had finally recovered from the explosion, though several still watched him with the cautious expressions of men who had just realized the stranger helping defend their fortress could accidentally erase part of it.

The cannon, meanwhile, looked perfectly fine.

Its mouth had reconstructed itself. The torn metal had folded inward, the split edges had rejoined, and the entire barrel had returned to the shape Kael had forged into it. Even the reinforcing rings sat exactly where he had placed them.

The weapon had absorbed his runes, amplified them, destroyed itself through the resulting force, and then repaired the damage on its own.

Kael could already imagine dozens of uses for something like this.

Fire was only the beginning.

Heft had also spread through the structure. If he loaded a physical projectile while the rune was active, the cannonball might gain tremendous mass before impact. Frost could perhaps turn the weapon into a siege engine capable of freezing entire sections of an army, though the internal energy cost would probably be disgusting. Execrate and Exploit Weakness might create stranger effects still, assuming the cannon could carry those runes into whatever it struck.

There was no time to test any of that.

A timer remained at the edge of his vision.

[The Second Wave will begin in 1 hour 03 minutes.]

Kael dismissed the possibilities for later.

He had one more part of his plan to complete before the attack began.

"Keep this cannon here," he told the nearest officer. "No one fires it unless I’m present."

The officer looked toward the burning hill.

"You need not worry."

"That sounded less like agreement and more like fear."

"It can be both."

Kael accepted the answer.

He stored Brokk’s Hammer only long enough to descend from the battlements. The stairs spiraled down through the gatehouse, carrying him past ammunition rooms, resting chambers, and narrow murder corridors from which soldiers could attack anything that breached the outer entrance.

Men moved everywhere.

Some carried bundles of arrows toward the walls. Others rolled barrels of water, sand, and oil into position. Wounded soldiers lay inside temporary infirmaries while healers worked through the night to make as many of them battle-ready as possible before the next wave.

Kael reached the northern gate.

From the inside, the damage looked worse.

The gate had held, but several wooden panels had bowed inward beneath the hobgoblins’ relentless assault. Thick splinters protruded from the surface. One iron reinforcement had partially torn free, leaving the bolts around it twisted and exposed. Cracks spread from the weakest sections like dark veins through the wood.

Workers had already begun pressing support beams against it.

Kael stepped beside them and pulled out Brokk’s Hammer.

"Move."

The workers recognized him and immediately cleared the area.

Kael struck the first broken section.

The protruding wood compressed beneath the hammer. Split fibers pulled together, tightening until the crack nearly vanished. He struck again, forcing the bowed panel back toward its original alignment.

The gate groaned from the impacts as dust fell from the hinges.

Several soldiers stepped away nervously, but the ancient structure held. With each impact, damaged wood remembered the shape it had possessed before an entire army spent hours beating it with clubs.

Kael moved toward the torn reinforcement.

The bent iron shifted beneath Brokk’s Hammer. Bolts straightened. The thick support band pressed itself flat against the gate, sealing the weakness it had left behind.

He continued from one damaged section to another.

Some cracks required replacement material. Kael took spare timber from the fortress workers, fitted it into the broken areas, and used the hammer to force old and new wood together. The repairs did not merely cover the damage. They integrated the added material into the gate’s structure, thickening the portions most likely to suffer during the next assault.

The fortress workers watched as the opening gradually regained its strength.

"This gate will hold again," one of them said.

"It needs to do more than hold again," Kael replied. "The next wave will be worse."

He reinforced the lower panels where the clubs had struck most often, then added metal around the central locking mechanism. The gate became heavier with every alteration, but the chains and gears used to open it could still manage the increased weight.

When Kael finally stepped away, the cracks were gone.

The repaired gate looked rougher than it had before the first wave. New pieces of timber broke the uniform pattern, and additional iron bands crossed its center. It was not beautiful.

It was stronger.

Kael checked the timer.

Forty-seven minutes remained.

He headed toward the next gate.

The fortress had four primary entrances, each facing one of the open approaches surrounding the city. Kael moved through the inner streets as quickly as he could, passing soldiers, refugees, and workers preparing for the next attack.

The second gate had suffered less damage than his own. And was easier to repair.

The spear wielder’s gate was next.

Then the mage’s.

Each entrance had endured the first wave differently. Some had been battered by clubs. Others had been damaged by the weight of thousands of creatures pressing against them at once. One had deep claw marks across the exterior where hobgoblins had tried to pull the wood apart.

Brokk’s Hammer corrected everything Kael had enough material to address.

He could not make the gates indestructible.

He could make sure the second wave did not inherit the damage caused by the first.

By the time he finished the fourth gate and returned to the wall, less than twenty minutes remained.

The three cooperative climbers were already waiting near the northern tower.

The Leonard was absent.

Kael had not invited him.

The burly man leaned against his enormous sword while watching soldiers finish positioning the cannon Kael had repaired for his section.

Kael approached them.

"Anyone know what we’re going to fight next?"

The mage looked toward the dark plains.

"Considering that the first attack’s heaviest fighting lasted around four hours, and we’ve spent almost the rest of the cycle preparing, I have a feeling the remaining twenty-six hours won’t be as generous."

Kael understood what she meant.

The first wave had lasted far longer than the most intense period of fighting, but the Tower had still provided them with enough time afterward to recover, repair, and understand the defensive system.

That generosity was unlikely to continue.

"You think the remaining waves will come one after another?" the spear wielder asked.

The mage nodded. "Possibly with little or no rest between them."

"Yeah," Kael said. "I had the same worry. The first wave was probably there to let us test everything. The next ones won’t stop."

The burly man looked toward the city below.

"That means the soldiers won’t have time to repair between attacks."

"Neither will we," Kael said. "So let’s make a proper plan now."