The wonderful thing about using the weather to attack was that the main energy needed to weave the spell was the part of creating the conditions. Jenna didn't have to fuel the storm to keep it going, only having to guide the quite natural processes that caused lightning, then direct it as it flashed from the clouds above. She had reached as far as she could reach with the lightning, enough to get a good part of the enemy reserves, but the rest were too far away for the lightning to reach, not without increasing the size of the storm. And Tarrin knew that she couldn't do that. She had made it as large as she could make it without inviting T'Kya's wrath. She kept raining lightning down wherever she saw a large concentration of enemies, moving the lightning closer and closer to the city to stem the flow of reinforcements. The Goblinoids that were trying to get into the city stopped rushing towards the walls, some of them diving to the ground, some of them turning around and fleeing back towards their army's reserves, some running in circles or in random directions.
Tarrin wove together a massive, intricate weave of Fire and Divine power, charging it with a great amount of magical power, then he released it. The Elemental spirit which answered his calls flowed into the magical construction he had created for it, and then it manifested before him as a gigantic scorpion of fire, fifteen spans long and with a tail ten spans on its own, dropping to the ground below. Tarrin instructed it to attack and kill any Goblinoids it could find, not to harm the humans, Wikuni, Were-kin, Centaurs, and Selani engaging the Goblinoids, and to render aid to their allies if it saw them in danger of being cut down by the Goblinoids. It assured him it understood the situation, and then waded into the fight with its fiery claws and stinging tail flashing out to strike at their enemies. Tarrin had dropped the Fire Elemental right in the breach, just behind the rubble of the wall, where it could assault the Goblinoids from behind even as the Arakites and Ungardt pushed them back into the Fire Elemental. Now he could concentrate somewhere else and allow his Fire Elemental to act on its own, adding more power to their efforts.
There was still stiff resistance, despite the power of the spells he and Jenna used. He absently incinerated a ki'zadun Wizard, who was using magic to send sheets of reddish fire up at the wall, fire from which the Wikuni musketeers recoiled savagely. Fire would ignite their gunpowder and kill them, and the Wizard seemed to understand that. When the fire stopped, the fifty or so odd Wikuni, all of them mismatched in appeareance but wearing those same red and blue uniforms, all knelt at the command of their officer and then fired their muskets down at a group of Goblinoids that had just climbed over the rubble of the wall. They pulled back to reload, and were replaced by a troop of Sulasian archers, who rained arrows down on the Goblinoids trying to crawl over the rubble of the wall until the musketeers were ready to fire again. The few that did manage to get over rubble alive were either blasted by Jenna's lightning, or found themselves facing a merciless Fire Elemental. They shrieked in panic and agony as Jenna's lightning pounded among them, and then the creatures, stunned by the thunderclap, were rent to pieces by the solid fire claws of the Elemental, or were speared by its tail, or were simply trampled under, where the intense heat the Elemental radiated set fire to their clothes, fur, and hair. Even a glancing blow from the Elemental left charred wounds in its wake, making the creature absolutely deadly to its enemies.
Tarrin saw that Goblinoids were still trying to climb up the walls. He saw a contingent of Arakites and Wikuni pushing ladders away from the walls with long poles, and in another area, they were fighting at close range with a large number of agile Dargu that had managed to get onto the wall. Tarrin realized that he'd wear himself out trying to kill them all, when he could simply do what Jenna did before him. Now that most of the enemy Wizards were dead, they wouldn't be able to stop them a second time. He drew in all the power he could, and then wove together the seven flows to form a Ward, charging it so it would last about an hour. Given the short duration, it allowed him to make its physical dimensions impressive, and he set it so that it ran about ten spans away from the outside edge of the wall, extending about a half a longspan from one side to the other. Wards had to be enclosed, continuous, so instead of a globe or sphere, he formed it as a rectangular box that was twenty spans wide, which brought the outside half of the wall into its area of protection. That made it as good as a wall, one that reached the whole area in which the Goblinoids were trying to climb the walls or enter through the opening Jenna had formed.
It took more than what he could hold at one time, forcing him to weave the Ward in stages, and it took him nearly two minutes to complete. But when he released it, the time and effort were more than worth it, for the Goblinoids on the walls, trying to climb up the walls, trying to climb up the rubble of the wall, they all simply dropped stone dead wherever they were. Those Goblinoids racing forward crumpled to the ground the instant they crossed that invisible boundary, slain by the power of the Ward.
The storm over their heads began to drift east, carried by the sea breeze, out over the reserves of the ki'zadun, but as it moved, it left Jenna's control. The sudden deluge of rain and lightning did probably cause them some problems, however, for it made it hard for them to see that their Goblinoids were dying off at an alarming rate. Tarrin looked down through his projection, seeing that without the influx of reinforcements, the Goblinoids in the city that were still alive were being cut down quickly, overwhelmed by the superior skills of their human, Selani, Wikuni, and Fae-da'Nar enemies. Even if they committed their human elements, this battle was won.
So why did they continue to press the attack?
It made no sense! They'd lost their Demons, their Priests, most of their Wizards, the Fae-da'Kii, and now they were going to lose their Goblinoids. Why continue to attack? What reason did they have? It was madness! Were they so single-minded that they would throw their entire army away? Were they so afraid to go back and face Val without a victory that they were all willing to die here and now? Tarrin looked out over the reserves, seeing a dome of dryness that held Kravon and that six-armed, snake-bodied Demoness, the one commanding the battle for her side. What was she doing? Was she a total incompetent?
The bodies kept piling up around the walls, and the forces within were starting to run out of Goblinoids to fight. They had slaughtered a huge amount of them before, and what were left either died outside the walls or were cut down by the defenders within. Many of them stood in place, catching their breath, as a few small pockets of fanatical Goblinoids were surrounded and crushed by the defenders, but they were few and far between.
Tarrin turned to look at the Demoness as the storm passed. They had nothing but their human reserves left, about five thousand troops, and that wasn't a match for the force they would have to challenge. But still she didn't order a recall. Instead, she looked down at the emaciated Wizard and said something. Kravon nodded, and then called someone up to him. A small man scurried forward, holding a strange black metal device. What was that thing?
Kravon held it in his hands, and Tarrin could see that he was saying something. No, he was chanting. He was using magic! Tarrin sent his awareness over towards them, and as it got closer, he could sense the power of that black metal rod. It was some kind of magical artifact, and it was powerful!
That had to be their trump card!
Tarrin immediately reached into the Weave and tried to block its magic, but he found himself facing a black wall of impenetrable strength. He couldn't affect that strange thing! He felt at the power, and realized that it was the residual power of a god's might. A god had made that thing, and he couldn't affect it!