Late afternoon found Keeton exhausted and discouraged. The battle for Arishaig had resumed shortly after the march around the walls by the Jarka Ruus, and it had not yet ceased. Nor did he think it would until they were all dead. He no longer doubted this was inevitable. The demonkind were too numerous and too powerful to be stopped by the city’s defenders. He no longer believed there was any hope.
The beginning of the end had come earlier in the day. The massing of the demon hordes and their slow circling of the walls had been exactly what Keeton had suspected it might be—a feint to draw attention away from the real attack. The latter came shortly afterward, a fresh enemy army appearing abruptly from behind the ridgeline and launching a full frontal attack on the west wall and its already weakened gates. Both Keeton and Sefita had been ready for this, their soldiers on the ramparts and airmen aboard the warships armed and ready to respond. Unit commanders had been dispersed to their positions and orders to stand and hold issued to one and all. What else could they do, after all? The last of the oil was poured into the ditches and lit, the flash rips that had been mounted in a makeshift fashion atop the walls were brought quickly into play, and the vast armament of both waiting warships was turned broadside to repel the attack.
The effort had been successful. Although the creatures from the Forbidding pressed forward through flames and cannon fire and the launching of numerous steel-tipped missiles, the combined might of Federation military air and land forces had eventually thrown them back. It didn’t happen right away and it didn’t happen easily, but it did happen.
The problem was that this didn’t put even a temporary end to things; it simply served as a prelude. Because now the demon army was positioned both east and west, and the moment the west force went into retreat, the east force attacked. This was the bigger of the two armies and the one to which the larger task had been appointed—to destroy the Federation landing platforms and their moored vessels.
Keeton, standing with the defenders on the west wall, didn’t have a chance to assess its purpose firsthand and missed any chance to do so while there was still time. To those defending on the east it appeared this was just a further effort to break down the gates of the city. But it quickly became apparent that the thrust of the assault was not against the gates or even the east wall, but against the ramparts that protected the landing platforms at the southeast corner of the city. The hordes initially attacked the gates in waves, but quickly swerved off toward the platforms. Winged creatures returned in droves, dropping attackers that swarmed the defenses and quickly ignited whatever would burn. The warships were mostly aloft, but those that weren’t went up in flames along with skiffs, flits, and dozens of others. Only the transports, housed within barns deep inside the city and still out of view, were spared.
Virtually every airship sitting out on the platforms was destroyed, and the platforms themselves were so badly damaged they could not be used for landing without posing a danger to the ships and crews attempting to do so. The attack was swift and purposeful, and—once the intended result was accomplished—it broke off and retreated from sight.
That was when Keeton, consulting with Sefita Rayne and a handful of ground commanders, made the decision to begin evacuating the city. The Coalition Council was in disarray, its members scattered. Many had already left in private airships, fleeing for the safety of other cities. Many had simply gone to ground. No one seemed to be in charge. Edinja Orle was still missing, although there were rumors that she had flown to Wayford and Dechtera to seek additional support for the Federation’s capital city. Whatever the case, members of the military were making all of the decisions by now, and Keeton was still their commander in chief.
The decision to evacuate was arrived at easily enough, however. With the transports still intact, there was no reason not to remove as many of more vulnerable residents as possible, beginning with women and children and the sick and elderly. The city was in imminent danger of falling, and those trapped within were unlikely to survive what happened afterward. With warships available to act as escorts, saving those who could be saved was a choice that met with unanimous approval.