The screams of the dying and the wounded were drowned out by the sharp cracks of Wikuni muskets, their deadly weapons withering the advancing Goblinoids along the walls. One brave Were-kin had turned one of the massive cannons, fully loaded, and set it off in the face of a large group of Trolls that had just ripped through a phalanx of Sulasian regulars. The courageous Were-bear then waded into their ranks with his huge claws flailing, felling those not killed by the cannon's discharge. Keritanima led a Circle of four, with Dar and Ahiyira in her host, and they moved along the walls, targeting and killing any Wizard they spotted even as they used their magic to kill Goblinoids by the score. She spotted Jenna on the ground below with her Circle of seven, which included the Keeper and Koran Dar. The sister of Tarrin was still fresh, still impressive, weaving spells that quickly made any who had recognized her and her group flee in terror at the sight of her, for few survived long enough to escape once she noticed them. Allia was in the host of a Circle on the other wall across from the east gate, led by Dolanna, but the Selani was too busy killing Goblinoids with her short swords to worry about granting her power to Dolanna. All the Circles had formidable protection to isolate them from harm. Szath, her massive bodyguard, and Azakar were just two of a host of assorted Vendari, Knights, and Ungardt that had been assigned to defend the Sorcerers, and they did so with a ferocious efficiency that even made Trolls wary to try to get through them to reach the magicians behind. There were ten defenders protecting Keritanima's Circle, and though all of them were a little battered, bloody, and bruised, their weapons were drenched in the blood of their enemies. Szath and Azakar had entered something of a competetion to see who could kill the most enemies, and they led a squad of ten frightfully nasty warriors that were just as dangerous as they were. With them to protect the Sorcerers, no enemy had gotten within spear's length of Keritanima.
"Watch it, watch it!" someone shouted, and a Sulasian used a long pole to push a ladder of Waern off the wall. Though they had breached the gate, they still tried to come over the walls to surround the defenders. Keritanima shouted for her bodyguards to get clear, and they melted out of her path immediately as the Sulasian soldiers scrambled out of the way themselves. A host of Trolls tried to surge forward as the soldiers blocking their way suddenly fled, but all they managed to do was rush headlong right into a savage blast of pure fire that lashed over the battlement at the top of the wall, frying a good fifty foot length of the wall's top and everyone atop it.
Keritanima blew out her breath, panting. Jenna looked like she could go on forever, but Keritanima was getting tired. She had given so much of herself in the large Circle, it had taken so much to act as a link between her Circle and the larger one Jenna led. But she would not shirk off her duty! They needed her magic, and only Ahiriya in her Circle had the aptitude, ability, or experience necessary for a highly volatile situation like fighting in a battle. It required split-second reactions and decision making. Ahiriya would be a competent lead, but Keritanima wasn't going to give up quite yet. It would be better if Keritanima waited until she was too tired to lead anymore, to give Ahiriya the longest possible time to act as lead before the stress of it forced her to pass it to someone else. Hopefully, by then, they wouldn't be needed anymore.
The soldiers closed ranks before Keritanima, the Sulasians using their pikes to push the burning Trolls back among their own burning kind, or forcing them to fall from the walls. The ones that were burning shrieked and flailed wildly, some of them impaling themselves on Sulasian pikes in a mad attempt to run in their pain. But more Goblinoids advanced over the burning bodies of their cousins, Waern and Dargu, filling in the hole she had made before they could advance to retake that section of the wall.
That was enough! Keritanima could see that they weren't going to be able to stop the Goblinoids from taking the wall, unless they took the wall away from the Goblinoids! She looked down, where Jenna had just annihilated a large formation of undead zombies, and shouted down at her with a voice augmented by Sorcery. "Jenna, the wall!" she shouted. "Take out the wall from here back to the gate!"
"Are you crazy, Kerri?" Jenna paused, shouting back to her. "It'll open a bigger hole for them to come through!"
"They'll have to climb over the rubble, you'll kill a mess of them when the wall collapses on them, and it'll give you a clear shot at all those troops trying to come over the rubble!" she shouted back. "It's better to kill them before they get into the city, because we don't have to worry about killing friendly troops! And I can stop defending the wall and start killing the ones trying to come in!"
"Good point! Alright, brace yourself!"
Keritanima called for all of them to hold on, and grabbed hold of Szath. She felt Jenna draw up a massive amount of power, then unleashed it against the wall itself. The wall shuddered, then a good hundred foot span of it from the east gate to about twenty feet from where Keritanima was exploded outwards, showering the sieging troops in a deadly avalanche of falling stone. The Goblinoids atop the wall sank into an billowing cloud of dust as the ear-splitting sound of tearing stone drowned out their screams. The wall beneath her feet shuddered and swayed, knocking many off their feet, even making a few tumble over the side to plumme to the street below, but it stopped rocking and again became firm. "Alright, now go blow the gate and the wall on the other side!" Keritanima shouted down to her. "If they can't come up the stairs in the gatehouse, they'll have a bloody hell of a time getting up here!"
"I see why you're a Queen, Kerri!" Jenna shouted at her, then she collected up her Circle and the Vendari, Knights, and Ungardt defending it and moved to obey Keritanima's orders.
Keritanima paused to catch her breath, bent over, hands on knees, feeling her joints tremble. Someone grabbed her by the shoulder gently. "Let me take the lead," Ahiriya's voice called over the din. "You're about to fall over."
"In a few minutes," she promised. "So you have as much time as possible in the lead."
"Now!" Ahiriya barked at her. "I can feel your hold on the Circle fading, girl! If you try to weave in a Circle if you don't have full control, you'll Consume yourself!"
"I can handle it!" she snapped.
"This is no time for stupid heroism!" Ahiriya snapped at her. "If you lose control while Circled, you'll put us in danger too! Now give over the lead, or I'll break the Circle!"
Keritanima glared at her, but realized that as tired as she was, she wouldn't be able to stop Ahiriya from breaking the circle against her will. Usually, those in a Circle were at the mercy of the lead, unable to leave until released. She finally nodded, then submerged herself into the Circle, giving it no one true lead. She felt Ahiriya step up into that role, and then felt the hot-tempered Fire seat take up command of her power.
Keritanima's quick thinking turned out to be pivotal. The Goblinoids were robbed of their easy way onto the walls when Jenna destroyed the gatehouse, then destroyed the section of wall on the far side that the Goblinoids had won from the defenders. That freed up the Sulasian archers, the Wikuni musketeers, and the katzh-dashi on the walls to stop fighting for every finger of wall and turn their attention on killing the enemy troops charging towards the city. That advance turned into a withering killing field when Jenna climbed up onto the rubble and unleashed a blast of Sorcery against them that Keritanima had only seen from Tarrin, a cutting weave of pure Air that was sharper than the keenest blade. She sent that scythe of Air through the advancing Goblinoids like they were wheat, mowing them down by the hundreds as she whipped it back and forth over the land before the exposed, destroyed section of wall. Ki'zadun archers continued to try to shoot arrows at them, but they continued to be turned away by a weave that Jenna had placed earlier, a weave that was still active, a Ward that prevented any non-living thing not in the possession of a living thing from crossing from the outside to the inside. It stopped the arrows and catapult shot from coming in, but did not impede the arrows, muskets balls, and cannonballs from going out. She had set that not long after they had destroyed the main threat to their magic, the opposing Wizards and Priests with enough experience to undo Sorcery, and now those protections allowed the defenders to rain death on their attackers without fear of being fired upon in return. Jenna had wanted to weave a Ward that would have stopped any living thing from crossing it, but she couldn't spread it to cover the entire wall. Since their plans revolved around allowing a limited breach, they couldn't do something that would make the enemy attack the wall in a different location. Not when they already had a foothold in the city.