All the Golds in the city couldn’t fuel a single activation of one of those weapons, but they could help bolster the boundary field that lit the ground violet for miles. While that field was active, the structures in the city were stabilized and reinforced.
If not for that field, even a nearby clash between Heralds might destroy Moongrave.
Aura of all aspects was bent to the city’s defense, and Lindon had been delighted to see the boundary field tested. An Archlord had hurled fifty trees at the city walls at once, but all of them had been automatically intercepted by Ruler constructs and turned aside.
That script must have taken incredible knowledge and resources to build, not to mention the constructs involved, and Mercy had told him it wasn’t the only layer of defense.
There were massive scripts beneath the walls to defend against each of the Dreadgods specifically, but it was too expensive to keep them all powered at once. The Wandering Titan couldn’t attack their minds, for instance, so why power mental protections? It would only drain their defenses faster.
When Lindon had been on the tour of the tunnels running underneath the wall, where the great scripts were carved, he had been disappointed to learn he wouldn’t see the other Dreadgod scripts in action. The one was impressive enough, but this was a rare chance.
Now, he still enjoyed the sight from his vantage point over the city. As desperate as Moongrave was, their defenses were Lindon’s imagination come to life.
The sixteen huge launcher constructs around the city walls resembled vulture skulls the size of cloudships, each blazing with violet light. The defensive boundary field gave the light a purple haze, fighting the gold from the sky, and made the air buzz against his senses.
[Their dedication to the darker colors sings to the depths of my soul.]
“Are you finished?” Lindon asked.
Dross purred like a kitten. [I have simulated our death and destruction in every reasonable permutation. Not only did I find it thrilling, but I also have a functional idea of how to avoid any scenario in which the Titan can place us.]
Lindon sent his relief to Dross and looked over the other Archlords. He was supposed to cooperate with them in this defense, and he had tried to incorporate their abilities into Dross’ calculations, but they had been unwilling to hand over detailed knowledge of their capabilities to him.
For some reason.
Lindon stood on a dark Thousand-Mile Cloud high above the city. The twelve Archlords the Akura clan had mustered for the city’s defense were separated distantly, spread out along the wall facing the Titan’s approach.
There had been some debate about where to put Lindon. Sages and Heralds were traditionally allowed to move independently, and some were treated that way even here. The Winter Sage stood on the flat of a levitating sword not far away, her white hair blowing in the breeze. She kept shooting him glances that he interpreted as challenging, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she didn’t believe he could carry his weight.
Charity had been the one to suggest that Lindon shouldn’t be placed with the other Sages. Because of his arm, he might make an undue target for the Titan, and thus he should stay behind the protective scripts. Also, Dross would be invaluable in analyzing their defense if he was given a proper vantage point.
Lindon didn’t mind the position, but he suspected the real reason he wasn’t being placed like the other Sages was because Malice didn’t trust him.
The other Archlords were all older than him, though they ranged from a sixty-year-old woman who looked thirty to a wrinkled man who looked like he would crumple at a soft breeze. That man’s spirit blazed with such power that Lindon walked carefully around him.
None of them seemed to know how to treat Lindon.
He was a Sage, so he outranked them, but his youth and his lack of connection to the clan disturbed them. To some of them, a Sage was a Sage, and they just treated him as they would anyone more advanced. Others were visibly uncomfortable with him, others avoided him, and still others clearly expected him to defer to them because of their age.
Lindon didn’t mind treating them all with respect. Manners were free.
Dross had come up with several methods of coordinating the Archlords depending on what approach the Titan took and how the situation changed, though it was hard to do any accurate calculation without seeing them in action.
What are our odds? Lindon asked Dross. Silently, so that no one else could overhear. The closest Archlords were the better part of a mile away, but Archlord hearing was nothing to underestimate.
[You ask so often,] Dross observed. [Do you fear to leave your life in the fickle hands of chance?]