全城危机

Beneath him, his demon horse began to snort and paw the ground. Although there were no demon horses back on earth, Alexander immediately understood the meaning behind its actions. Hostiles were nearby.

"I suggest we retreat first and do some recon." Buccephalas said quietly.

"Hmmm" Alexander agreed. He turned his demon horse around and motioned for the rest to follow him. They went back slowly the way they came, cantering for a few minutes before Alexander stopped. The rest reined in their horses and stopped as well.

As they stood there and observed the distant town, they began to feel extremely uncomfortable. It was deathly silent, like a cemetery. She drew her wand and motioned for her bodyguards to do the same.

Alexander raised his hand. "Don\'t do anything." He said softly.

"I could scan the entire town from here." Aleyria whispered back.

Alexander shook his head. "We have to assume the entire town is dead. And they died so quickly that they weren\'t even able to send out the emergency signal for help. Anything that is capable of doing that would certainly detect your energy if you scan the town."

"There is absolutely nothing, no force large enough or strong enough to overwhelm a town of over thirty thousand people to the point where they all died before a signal for help could be released, without harming the buildings of the town. I would have believed it if the buildings were gone, that would indicate a major forbidden spell used. But just killing the people? No, I do not think so." Aleyria firmly replied.

"Nothing? Not even the forces from the main continent? Not even the undead?" Alexander asked.

"Well, I am not very clear on the makeup of the undead army. But…" Aleyria hesitated.

"Banshees." Buccephalas chimed in suddenly. "Banshees could do that."

"Banshees, maybe?" Alexander asked aloud.

"Yes. That\'s possible." Aleyria reluctantly agreed. "I was dreading that possibility because that would mean almost every one in that town is dead. And although I am sure we can win in a fight against a group of banshees, I do not think we will be able to go against more than a company of them."

"We definitely cannot alert the banshees without preparations. It would be extremely dangerous." Alexander said.

"What do you propose we do, then?" Aleyria narrowed her eyes and stared grimly at the distant town.

Valarin was a medium sized town. Tens of thousands of people lived in that town. It would be a tragedy of massive proportions if they were massacred. The worst tragedy in the history of Rin-Turah, probably at the level of the first tragedy that led to the naming of the City of Rin and the City of Turah.

"We set up a trap, bait them out and enjoy the show." Alexander replied with a wolfish grin worthy of a highland bandit.

He pointed to a copse by the side of the road, not too far away behind. "Leave the horses here, and let us hide there. The horses would make for a pretty good distraction while the trap springs all around them. In that time we have time to, ah, \'study\' the enemy. Are you able to leave behind spells with a delayed cast? I am assuming that you are, right?"

Aleyria rolled her eyes at Alexander. He grinned back at her and dismounted. The rest followed his lead, and under Alexander\'s directions, they began to set up an elaborate trap.

Banshees were weak against fire and lightning, so they prepared a ton of fire spells that would trigger when they willed them to.

"Set up also a large and fancy signal flare of some sort, one that would cause them to leave town and investigate." Alexander instructed.

"No problems. We usually send a Royal Crest flare whenever we approach a town. This tells the Town Guard to immediately come out and greet us." Aleyria said while setting up the flare.

"Excellent!"

After they were done, they made their way to the copse. They laid low and kept their eyes on the horses as well as the silent town.

"This is not a good idea." Buccephalas said seriously. "We do not want to be this close to the banshees which killed the town so quickly. I am pretty sure they are here in large numbers."

"Relax. Once we confirm the culprits, we can arrange a strategy quickly and then take them down. I am sure we are not lacking in firepower." Alexander assured Buccephalas. "Plus, the amount of fire spells we\'ve set up as traps should be enough to take out at least half of them."

Alexander grinned when he thought of the ridiculous amount of traps he had the girls set up. It would be quite the show when they finally blew up later.

Buccephalas sighed.

Alexander motioned for Aleyria to release the signalling spell.

Aleyria pointed at the horses and fire energy began to pulse upwards to the skies. With a single thought, the fire energy rearranged themselves and the Royal Crest of Rin-Turah flamed into glorious being 50 meters above the ground.

Aleyria stared at the distant town grimly. Indeed, no sound could be heard, even after she sent out the Royal Crest. It was highly irregular.

Usually the Town Guard would immediately gallop out to greet the Royal Retinue, even without being told to. For the Royal Guard to refrain from doing so could only mean two things.

One, they were otherwise occupied on an issue more important than greeting the King. Which was certainly not possible, barring a full revolt by the entire town, or an attack. And if that was the case, then the town would be in uproar, not silent.

Two, they were dead.

Suddenly, a chorus of low wails could be heard faintly from the town. It was growing louder very rapidly. Along with the unearthly wails, they could also hear the roars and screams of human beings. The ground began to tremble as thousands charged through the streets of Valarin towards them.

Aleyria\'s face blanched with horror. "Higher banshees!" She hissed.

"These higher banshees use soul attacks embedded in their keening! Get Aleyria to protect your ears! Quickly! They would send you into hallucinations and gain control of your bodies if they manage to hit you with a sound attack!" Buccephalas cried.

Aleyria whistled and immediately, the horses, except for the demon horse, galloped to where they were. She waved her arm and created a shimmering sound barrier around the copse.

"Marvelous." Aleyria growled. "Now we have to kill thousands of our own citizens just to get to the banshees." A few seconds later. "Damn it! I can\'t believe it!"

Hearing the alarm in Aleyria\'s voice, Alexander immediately focused on where she was staring. Upon seeing the hundreds of mounted cavalry charging out of the town, especially the incredibly fancy Red-Robed rider right at the forefront of the cavalry, Alexander understood Aleyria\'s shock. It was the Town Mayor and the Town Guard. In front of them were ten ridiculously hideous banshees.

Silently, he cursed himself for being an arrogant idiot. He was new to this world, and had very limited experience with fighting battles and dealing with the many different types of creatures. King Aloxandros knew about banshees, and even higher banshees. But those information were stored somewhere in his mind and he had to study the information to actually know about it.

And so because of that the strategies he employed on earth would not necessarily work as perfectly here.

"Damn." Aleyria said softly. "We can\'t activate the traps on these people. We just can\'t."

The Town Guard quickly ate up the distance between them, getting closer and closer every second. Time was quickly running out. Battle will be joined soon.

"We won\'t." Alexander replied firmly. He turned around and faced all of them. The aura of a Bronze General billowed forth from him and he gave out an extremely dependable and solid feeling to the four girls.

"Relax, the most important part of surviving a tough battle is keeping a cool head. Dealing with these people is actually very easy. Aleyria, disable that Red Robed peacock. After that, just rain death upon the banshees. Dari, I need you to wall the cavalry up completely and then move the very ground they are standing on somewhere else. I need you to do that quickly because you\'ll need to do that again to the mass of people coming out. Can you do that?"

Seemingly affected by Alexander\'s calmness, Kan-Dari replied Alexander in a very calm voice too. "Yes I can." She said very simply.

"If you can\'t, then simply walling them up is enough. Shira, Liz\'An, support Kan-Dari as much as you can. If there are no problems there, then support Aleyria and attack the banshees with all you\'ve got."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Good." Alexander nodded. "This will be our basic plan. But plans usually fall apart in the heat of battle, so I need you guys to be flexible and keep an eye out on the developing situation. I will also give clear instructions later. So pay attention to me as well."

"Yes, Your Majesty.." They all said in unison once more, even Aleyria joined in.