"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.

Jenna changed tacks, raising her hands as blazing light surrounded her form. Keritanima felt the buildup of power within her, and realized she was about to do something big. The little girl, barely more than a woman, suddenly looked like some avenging Avatar at that moment, surrounded by Magelight, looking like an unstoppable force against which nothing could stand. She had bought herself enough time by killing the enemies trying to get into the city to allow herself to do something drastic, probably aimed at the reserve forces still formed up well outside the city.

Keritanima watched with slightly blurring vision, blurring in exhaustion, as the spell was woven, diving into the earth. In a moment, a lage, lumbering hulk clawed itself out of the ground, and she realized that it was another Earth Elemental. This one was by no means as large as the one Triana made, which had reached the limits of its time here and returned to where it came from-which had totally wiped out Triana and took her out of the battle-but it was still monstrous. About thirty feet tall, looking like a two-legged barrel with stumpy arms and no head. It began lumbering out towards the reserve forces, but it was much faster than the Elemental that Triana had summoned. The soldiers rushing towards the city stopped dead in their tracks and scrambled out of the way of the surprisingly mobile Elemental, which went out of its way to step on a few of the slower ones as it stomped off to harass the enemy reserves. She saw the regimented lines of the reserve troops, mostly humans, began to waver, then back away, then flee in every direction as the huge magical creation reached where they were formed up, squashing anything it could catch and causing a total panic in the enemy reserves.

Keritanima had to admit… she liked Jenna's style.

The Wizards left on that side tried in vain to counter it with magic, but their spells bounced off the great Elemental or had no effect at all, and they too ended up fleeing from its advance when their attempts to destroy it did nothing more than make it notice them.

She turned her attention woodenly to an undulating cry below, and saw a pack of Selani chasing a group of Trolls with eager enthusiasm. The Selani and the Centaurs had run wild over the invading forces. They were both impossibly fast, able to attack and the melt away before the invaders had any idea what had just happened. They moved from street to street, block to block, house to house, attacking and destroying the invaders that had, at first, been seeking refuge from the withering missle fire coming from the walls. Those slashing tactics became a grim line of defense when the walls began to be taken over, the Selani proving that they were among the best warriors in the world by devastating any who came against them. Only the animated, undead creations in the enemy army, which had no fear, proved any kind of match for the Selani, who relied on crippling blows to fell an enemy and allowing them to finish it off at their leisure. The skeletons and zombies couldn't be killed by anything other than decapitation, and the Selani had to learn that in a costly manner, counted in the number of casualties they and the Centaurs suffered before the trick of it was discovered. But after the weakness was exploited, the defending lines were stabilized, then began to push back when an element of the Knights and a large reserve force of Arakite Legions were dispatched to help the Selani and Centaurs hold the line. The Arakites, masters of various defensive tactics, formed a shield wall and held the mixed host of undead, Fae-da'Kii, and Goblinoids off long enough for the Selani and Centaurs to regroup and rejoin the fighting. That shield wall parted as the mounted Knights and Centaurs crashed into the lines with their lances leading, trampling a wide swath through their opponents, and then the hole they created was quickly filled in by the Arakites and Selani, who, Keritanima had realized, were probably fighting side by side for the first time in their histories. The Knights and Centaurs curled around and separated into two groups, then engaged the enemies from behind while the Arakites and Selani assaulted their disorganized and demoralized front ranks. When the invaders' lines were split, the two halves were quickly swarmed under by the less numerous yet much more highly trained Arakites, Knights, and Selani.