Dawn of Arcane Destiny

Chapter One Hundred Seven

Caelum laughed when he opened the safe room door. Well first, they had fared a lot better than Lillia had, but they had definitely been prepared.

He had assigned a guard to stay with Ella and Cassian, but Cassian might as well have been guarding both adults. He jumped at Caelum with a chair leg as he opened the door with a mighty battle cry.

"Whoa there solider, it's just me, Caelum." He caught Cassian as he went stumbling past him.

Cassian raised his eyebrows imperiously, brandishing his chair leg. "Caelum, who? I be needing to see identification, sir."

Ella laughed at Caelum bewildered face. "You came just in time. We were about to go insane hearing Cassian's barked commands and marching from wall to wall for hours."

"Well it's good that's all I have to save you from." Caelum forced a chuckle. He nodded appreciatively at the guard sitting in the corner. "I want you to go outside and help the other guards there. We're going to need to set up a triage tent as soon as possible." The guard saluted and left.

"Will do, cap'n!" Cassian exclaimed moving to follow the guard out. Caelum grabbed his arm before he could go too far.

"Not you. You stay here."

Cassian sighed with relief. "Good. I don't be even knowing what triage is anyway."

That pulled a genuine laugh from Caelum. He ruffled Cassian's hair and turned to Ella. "That was only the first wave. There's going to be two more, we think. I need you to promise to come straight back here when they attack again."

Ella nodded. "I think we can manage that." She looked him up and down. "You look terrible."

"Thank you. You look considerably better." He said. "Come on. I need Drayce's help, but someone has to be there for Lillia. She's not doing so well."

***

We need to enforce the draft." Drayce said to Caelum and General Amsworth as they walked down the hill towards the Military encampment.

General Amsworth nodded. "We have a total of five thousand five hundred soldiers. A good chunk of that are greenies that haven't seen an actual battle in their life."

"At least a thousand attacked the castle." Caelum said. "against the one hundred fifty guards were not good odds."

"No." Drayce agreed. "But to be fair the demons are not incredibly skilled fighters. They use force, but not finesse. The battle environment will be a shock to those greenies, but I think they'll be able to manage. We'll need the manpower regardless."

General Amsworth nodded. "How big did you say their army is?"

"At least seven thousand, perhaps more." Drayce said. "Has there been any response to the draft so far?"

"A grand total of one man responded." The General said.

"One?" Drayce exclaimed stopping dead in his tracks.

General Amsworth nodded grimly. "It was a fairly young veteran from the southern district."

"This is going to be way harder than we thought." Caelum said.

"Maybe they'll respond now that one attack has taken place." Drayce said hopefully. "General, I need you to get on that. Gather them. Organize them. Arm them. Can you do that?"