Regular as a drumbeat, Endure rose and fell, keeping the pace, and tuskers screamed and died around Briggs with every step he was taking.

  The Mick and Kris were flitting back and forth in an ever-evolving Wolfpack circuit that led her Skeeters through the tuskers in a deadly, winding serpent of fire. The screaming tuskers dying in flames as Quaver cut right through their thick bodies didn’t interfere with her enthusiastic Singing at all, which was good, as there was a whole goddamn messload of tuskers to kill.

  The numbers on our side didn’t equal the numbers on theirs, but that was fine, as ours were far more effective with Bardsong and a Warlord’s direction, however simple, Buffing them up to a level well beyond what Mudmouth and the Dark Bobo could command out of their Summoned forces.

  Briggs was using my Controlled tuskers to form elite squads I could use Mass Buffs on easily, and wielding them like hammers against the loose horde of the enemy. Thus, there was a unit of dark-furred Annihilators down there, currently crackling with Haste sparking silver lightning all over them and ripping through the main mass of the attackers with aplomb and fury, just blurs of muscle in motion. They were backed up by two units of Devastators with Mass Barkskin and Mass Bludgeon Protection on them, which rendered them incredibly durable and much, much harder to kill than the tuskers they were going up against.

  Since it all stacked with the Morale Bonuses from Heartsong and Warlord commands, those tuskers were just juggernauts.

  The Casters with the Isparian forces were keeping eyes on Mowen and Tim, making sure they weren’t targeted by hostile magic that might really be able to hurt them.

  I was flying at about shoulder height near Tim and Mowen, assuring them I was watching and looking out for them as the two of them pounded away. Mowen’s great flaming fists could easily one-hit most of the Tainted tuskers, and he was having a great time reducing them to vivus, while bulling through and basically ignoring most of what they trying to do to him in return. As they came in to attack Tim, he mauled them from the flanks relentlessly.

  -Hilltop, half a mile, SSE!- Selena /reported, and I glanced that way, opening my Detect Magic VII+1 for just a moment to read the magic there, before equally quickly reducing it down to a local view.

  -Mudmouth confirmed over there by magical field,- I /informed everyone. -The fake Bobo I don’t know. Eyes sharp looking for it!-

  -Try two o’clock, quarter-mile out in those trees. A lot of the incoming tuskers are coming from there,- Briggs /stated calmly, not interrupting his own killing.

  I glanced that way, agreed that it looked suspicious, and prepared to Linejump over there. “Tim, if you see me using fire over in those trees, the Dark Bobo is there!” I Messaged both him and Mowen, who naturally turned to look in that direction.

  -Do that prick Mudmouth have anything around him?- the Mick /asked.

  -I can’t see any bodyguards, Lord Mick. If he has any, they are running right past him. Wasn’t the Dark Bobo supposed to be his bodyguard?-

  -An’ he sent it away to lead the troops. He’s open!-

  And before I could even Linejump over to Dark Bobo, the Skeeters were pulling back towards the line of flaming Spears, and the streaks of fire that represented the Mick and Kris had snapped off and were gone, the two effectively disappearing among the rush of Tuskers charging in toward far more visible targets.

  There was a rush of dislocation and space spinning, and I was in among the trees and looking down from them at what was going on below.

  Tuskers didn’t normally look up, and these were no different. Even seeing the missile troops out there shooting from Disks and Wagons well above the ground, the tuskers below didn’t look up as they streamed on past in a constant flow of respawning reinforcements funneled here by howled commands from real, Tainted tuskers forming a funnel of battle assembly calls over the miles.

  They came here, fell under Dark Bobo’s control, and raced out into the fight taking place here.

  Dark Bobo did indeed look like a shadowy version of the Tusker King at his prime, with the bright red eyes of Shades further emphasizing the difference. Same kind of tusker armor, and he even had on a big shiny black swami hat with a black star sapphire set in it, clearly emulating and mocking the Tusker King at the same time.

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  He had a bodyguard of four Tainted Annihilators, all Summons, so never needing to be fed and no questioning his orders, flanking him and not getting in his way. His head was turned to the towering form of Tim, looming over many of the palms in his bright silver Armor, the huge Club of solid fire a swathe of doom scything through rows after rows of tuskers, the Summons basically exploding and incinerating in fire and vivus, many reduced to dust before they could hit the ground.

  Yeah, Tim was pretty attention-getting.

  I didn’t start off with attacks, as Dark Bobo could and would run away, heading back to Mudmouth for joint magical support. No, I brought up a wall behind the group of them, Shaping up the stone silently into a circle behind them ten feet thick and forty feet high, making sure he and his minions couldn’t get out. Given all their attention was focused ahead on all those Flaming Weapons and tuskers burning, screaming, and dying as the attackers pressed ahead, they didn’t notice the walls coming up silently behind them until it was basically too late.

  Dark Bobo’s head jerked around, the glowing orbs widening as he watched stone flowing up out of the ground and locking him in. Instead of sprinting for the opening, he pivoted around to see how much was blocked off, and so I simply Cast the Wall of Stone to seal off the rest instantly.

  It was only three feet thick as opposed to ten, which meant that if he charged the opening instantly, he might have been able to break through it with muscle and mass. He made the wrong choice, and the instant the Wall was up, indistinguishable from the Shaped Stone, I was reinforcing it.

  His head snapped up when I Cast, seeing me standing on the edge of the Wall to his right. He snarled and jumped at me, his shadowy black fist of stone raised to pound at me.

  He crashed into the wall five feet below me, the stone cracking loudly but holding. I stared down at him as he fell back to the ground, his Annihilator bodyguards bellowing and scraping at the cool stone of the walls as they tried to reach me.

  I brought up some Fire Shards – very, very bright ones – and Chain Shardrayed the lot of them with six streaks of fire that ignited the air in an inferno as they came down.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I heard Tim bellow and point, and he then simply bulled his way forward through the tuskers, flaming Boots alternately kicking them out of his way or crushing them to fried ectoplasm underneath him. He charged my way, Smasher raging back and forth to clear more tuskers out of his way, and incidentally spun half the tuskers or more on the battlefield around to follow him.

  Mowen took off after him, racing on all fours, but bouncing back and forth between the enemy Summons chasing after Tim, sending them flying, broken and burned, as he lashed back and forth.

  After them poured Briggs’ Commanded units of Annihilators and Devastators, heads crowned with harmless flames that nonetheless looked spooky and impressive to even Summons, widening the gap and punishing any tuskers dumb enough to turn their backs on them and stay in their way.

  The flaming arrows into the backsides of the tuskers were murderous as the lines of archers shifted forward in partial pursuit of Tim, dotting the field with tumbled and flaming tusker corpses caught in mid-run and joining the flaming, misting carnage the Tremendous Monuga was leaving in his wake.

  -Charge the wall! I’ll bring it down and he’s on the other side!- I /promised Tim, who didn’t slow down his massive strides as he raised Smasher and came up on the Wall.

  I Dispelled it and un-Shaped its reinforcement. It melted out of Tim’s path as he bellowed a deafening battle cry. The Tusker King, barely singed despite eating over three thousand points of fire damage, turned just in time to look up at Tim and see Smasher arcing down.

  I saw a whole bunch of Health Qi vent, and even more when Tim’s boot came burning in and caught the nearly-erect Dark Bobo, who’d dodged most of Smasher's impact, right in the chest, sending him crashing him back against the stone wall.

  Howling like a mad monkey, Mowen pounded in, somehow wove between Tim’s legs, and slammed into this parody of his beloved King at full speed with both flaming fists. I watched a whole lot more Health Qi vent explosively.

  The Dark Bobo tried to fight, he really did. But I Shaped up the stone behind Tim again and blocked the pursuing tuskers trying to reach him, although only making it thirty feet tall so they could see his head above it and keep trying to reach it in stupid frenzy.

  Multiple Chained Shardrays bored through the tuskers, and they began to fall with incredible speed, the Kickers on the Rays eating them away and making them incredibly vulnerable to the fists and flames of the attackers following them.

  Dark Bobo screamed as he was locked in there with two massive Buffed attackers. When I Mass Blooding’d their Weapons, instead of targeting him with Fester, his doom was assured.

  Dark Bobo had insane Fast Healing and a lot of armor and Damage Reduction… and I wasn’t going to target him and spur any reactive Buffs from him. But Blooding didn’t care, it was a Curse effect that lasted until Natural Renewal or Dispelled… and getting rid of Curse Magic didn’t seem to be in his repertoire, judging by his howls as suddenly his very serious rate of Fast Healing wasn’t having any effect on the pounding attacks of his two attackers at all.

  The two brutes with flaming Weapons had no problems hitting him repeatedly and venting a lot of Health Qi as they did. All forcing them back with powerful swipes did was get them beating on him from both sides, and he roared and bellowed and spun, trying to figure out how to beat them and get out of there… and I waited overhead patiently, watching him, waiting for him to try the magic which I could see he had, to Counter and stop it and only hasten his ending.

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