82 Clash of Clans (2/2)

”Thanks,” she said in a soft voice.

This, of course, made my face so hot it must have been redder than an apple.

”The boy touched with fire,” she mused. ”You must be happy that our enemies consider you a threat enough to have named you.”

I groaned. ”Luca told you about that, did he?”

Seeing the blush on my face only made Aura's smirk wider. ”It suits you.”

I scratched my head. ”Y-yeah… I thought so too. Although I'm not sure why they'd call me that.”

Aura patted my red hair with one of her delicate hands. ”I could think of a few reasons.”

The sounds of battle disrupted our playful banter, and it forced us to turn our attention back on the battlefield below.

You could hear their war cries from a mile away. Even the final death rattles of soldiers cursing their opponents as their lives ebbed to nothing. There were also the sounds of a thousand arrows swooshing through the night sky and then falling down with a thud on shields and armor, along with the occasional agonized screaming of a direct hit. But worst by far were the boom-boom of cannon fire and the following elemental explosions that came after their projectiles found their mark.

Even from the safety of our hilltop, Aura and I pulled back as columns of fire and tidal waves of water erupted against the  Darah army's formations. And if it wasn't for the arcane shields cast by our magicians, the devastation of the Magesong clan's spell cannons would have cut our troops in half.

”Damn,” I raised my arm to shield my sight from the colorful explosions. ”Guess whoever took those cannons down didn't get them all…”

”That was Al Sheridan's work… he runs an independent unit like us too,” Aura answered.

”Huh,” I said as I dropped my arm. My eyebrow rose at the realization that Darah had someone else she relied on to do the dirty jobs. ”I've never met him.”

”He's not very sociable. Mostly keeps to himself and his unit,” Aura admitted.

Whatever I was about to say regarding this other independent unit was drowned out by the horns of war blasting all over the three battlefields, signaling that a change in formations was about to begin. The cannon fire and other projectiles stopped as the infantry units of both sides began to charge forward once again.

If anything, the smaller scale battles were even fiercer than the previous night with all three Darah armies engaged against all three Magesong armies in a brutal melee clash.

The right and left armies—which had held back on all-out war during the previous night—were now full of scenes similar to ants devouring a piece of food that had fallen to the floor.

I couldn't hear the clashing of their shadowblades, but I could somehow feel the bloodlust spreading out of these battlefields. It was as if many of the soldiers fighting down there had forgotten the causes they answered and had become nothing more than beasts seeking the fresh kill. It was insane.

In contrast to the intensity of last night, the center army seemed content to send their cavalries out to test each other. But Thors at the lead of a thousand strong cavalry was all the difference necessary for our side to prove stronger. The fact that the enemy center army no longer had a general who could match up to him in terms of battle strategy meant the enemy was continuously pushed back.

”We did that,” I whispered, to which Aura responded with, ”Yes, we made it possible for the center army to dominate the field tonight.”

”The war might be over sooner than we thought,” I joked.

I regretted it as soon as the words escaped my lips. You never joke about things like that because it's like you're inviting karma to screw shit up for you. And it did, big time.

Another war horn sounded behind the Magesong center army. The unfurling of banners followed. And just like that, the center army had the reinforcements it needed to stand their ground.

My eyes scanned the flag flying high in the air. It was a gray flag with the symbol of an outward-facing palm, its two fingers holding lightly onto a thin wand-like blade.

The enemy raised a second banner beside the first. This one was a white flag with a black wand at its center.

I scowled. ”Hey, Aura, can you call Nike over? I need her to send my message to the McCord brothers.”