Ouiz felt his brother warriors were under fire. He motioned to the scouts, pointing towards the Pope of Dunesphere’s own villa and said, “Go there. Claim their leader so we may use him to force them to hand over the Leonin.”
One of the scouts, Peyri BlueHoof asked, “Captain Ouiz, what are we to do to those who stand in our way? Kill them, or capture them for the Queen?”
Ouiz telepathically told the other three, “You will destroy anyone who stands in your way. Ignore their civilians and those who do not attack you. Keep Peyri safe at all costs.”
Putting his full connection towards Peyri, Captain Ouiz spoke, “At the cost of your own life, you must capture either their pope or the Leonin. One or other other, and return with them to our Queen. Is that understood?”
“Yes Captain,” replied Peyri telepathically, “For the Queen. But what are you going to do sir?”
“Our brothers need help out there,” said Ouiz, “I will find a place where the fires have not yet spread, that overlooks the city and our brothers at the walls. There are still thirty warriors who need my guidance. Do not worry Peyri, through our hivemind, I will be with you as well. You are never alone.”
Ouiz watched Peyri and the other scouts disappear into the smoke that now choked the first two floors of every building in the city. He could hear the Earthers screaming about hell, and wondered what they meant. Accessing the Hivemind he quickly learned, and said, “Oh weak ones, I will show you what a hell can really be.”
He fire leaped up to a small roof top, and then from there up to a stone tower topped by church bells. In the steeple he took up position. The battle outside the wall was raging.
The EEF garrisoned at Dunesphere had begun firing upon the Quall, but their bullets did little to the burst shields and walls of fire the Quall squads set up defensively around themselves. Bullets, railgun rails, and other projectiles were harmlessly melted away before they were a threat to the Quall. And many a sniper and sharpshooter cursed their luck as their mundane bullets and rail spikes were thwarted. Ouiz laughed at their folly, from here he could even see a gleaming power armored form out on the sand firing away at his men from the rear.
He took a moment to melt the metal of the railgun, and watched with pleasure as the weapon fell apart in the soldier’s hands. Ouiz was surprised to see any soldier would have such hubris to stand out in mirror shining armor against Quall N’drone. He must not think much of us, Ouiz thought.
The Quall could tell his target was an immutable, and immune to many of his most deadly attacks. So instead he focused his will for a moment and ten Quall focused their Leyas and melted the armor clean off revealing a muscular Olgog inside. Then they superheated the sand near him, so that he suck ankle deep in sand hot enough to cook his flesh down to the bones. The Olgog fell trying to use a hand to hold himself up, but it too sunk into the deadly sand. The Quall left him to a slow death.
Ouiz realized the EEF would start firing another salvo of attacks at his Quall if they remained outside the city. He had twenty charge the walls, seeking to leap them instead of breaking through them. Instead the dirt beneath them began to churn as Mighty Yadols ripped apart the turf beneath the Quall. Many Quall fell in as the ground opened up. Some never came back out sealed away under ground or crushed under the churning Yadols.
Ouiz could see waves of Earth Leyas being manipulated by a distant Olgog. The remaining ten Quall turned and leapt away, using fire leap to quickly surmount the wall. Once inside the city, the ten Quall were a force to be reckoned with. They crushed paladins, incinerated witchhunters, and used Red Bishops like human cudgels. Their squad tactics were perfect, covering each other, and clearing the streets methodically.
As they pushed forward, Ouiz could sense from them that the civilians were fleeing towards the paupers quarter. He was tempted to send a scout to find out what was there, but could no longer spare the extra warriors.
While the Yadol attack had deeply injured the Quall offensive, five Quall from the twenty who fell into the ground still lived. Together they focused the leyas to blast their way free, tunneling in their own destructive way up from the Yadols and through the city walls. These five synched up with Ouiz’s ten, and fifteen strong they charged for the center of Dunesphere.
Ouiz trusted them to handle any threats they faced, and began leaping again from roof to roof, to see if he could get a visual on where the humans were fleeing to. Finally he reached a steel water tower, that overlooked the Pauper’s Quarter. The ranshakled huts and dilapidated shacks had gone up like tindling, but in the center of the blaze was a place of calmness.
The ground had been expertly burrowed, and the iron crosses stolen the night before were in positions as support beams on both sides of the tunnel. An Olgog stood before the tunnel mouth, ordering the gathering civilians down through the tunnel to safety on the other side. Ouiz was tempted to interfere when his attention was drawn back to the fifteen Quall warriors intent on the center of the city.
They reached a choke point, where two statues formed a corridor. The Quall came together only to be lit up by soldiers in Lions of Earth uniforms. Gunfire could be seen from every nearby window, and hundreds of rounds were striking the burst shields of the Quall. While the Quall were distracted by the immense firepower that was striking their shields, Ouiz saw something that was invisible reveal itself.
An artificed sword was the first thing he saw as it struck one of his Quall warriors, dropping the Quall’s shield as it did so. Then he saw the pistol the swordsman raised, to fire a salvo of chillbolts into the Quall N’drone’s unprotected back. In that same moment, the Quall was torn apart by the bullets that now struck home. The swordsman was an EEF General who quickly went invisible again.
Ouiz advised his remaining Quall of the danger. They formed a circle, and began igniting the buildings around them, hoping to drive out the Lions of Earth. In a way they succeeded, as Ouiz unhappily watched.
Ouiz could see the EEF general charge into battle against his Quall, a small nimble bastard at his side, and a group of soldiers at his back. His sword clipped through shields, while the bastard’s springshots followed up with strikes to the unprotected throats and heads of the Quall. Ouiz watched the battle and knew his Hive would need to develop better armor.
He telepathically spoke to Kedorox and said, “My Queen the battle goes poorly here. We will need to reevlautae tactics and armor when I return. My Queen…” Nothing but silence.
Something he had never experienced since birth. Somehow these savages had cut off his ability to communicate with his queen. He used all his will to transmit to the entire Hive what had happened in the battle so far, and his suggestions for armor, weapons and tactics based on upon their failures to hold a siege upon the city.
He also knew without his Queen to command it, his vanguard would get no reinforcements from the Land of the Quall N’drone. They were here alone in combat against an entire city. So far they had excelled in restraint. Now unfortunately for the people of Dunesphere, all restraint would need to lifted.
He signaled to two of the Quall to pull away from the battle, stealthily sneaking away from the melee. These two he sent running towards the merchant quarter the scouts had passed earlier. The Merchant quarter held all sorts of goods that the people of Dunesphere needed. And not least among these were oil and coal for cooking and heating their homes. And merchant houses had great stockpiles complete with barrels of coal and drums of oil. The oil was marked with the symbols for the petrol fields of Dusk, and the coal with the shipping labels from Dumbar. But neither label stopped the Quall warriors from grabbing barrels and drums four at a time and hurling them like artillery across the cityscape.
Blackheart Security machinegun nests were now targeting the last of the fifteen who had fought the Lions of Earth. Ouiz heard cry after cry in his head, as his warriors fell to the sword, the high caliber bullet, or to the chillbolt. Their connection shared their sadness and pain at the time of death, and Ouiz swore it would not be in vain
EEF soldiers and Lions of Earth were moving in on the positions of the two in the merchant quarter, and Ouiz wished the Quall Warriors well in their next reincarnation. Then he ignited the main powder storehouse in the merchant quarter where the Red Bishops allocated blackpowder, smokeless powder, and gun jelly to approved firearms and explosives vendors. As the powder storehouse went up, Ouiz reached out to Peyri Bluehoof to see how the scouts were faring in their kidnapping plan.
