The Attack of Ganhai Mountain

A covert battle strategy.

The army reached the top of the mountain, hiding from Urachan's view.  They were still walking a few feet above the ground, protected from the mountains slippery spell.  They waited, watching Urachan's castle. Leevan still thought it looked like a rock with windows and a drawbridge.  They waited behind the rocks, Leevan, Normir, and the general, spying on the castle, waiting for the right moment.  Eventually the drawbridge started to open.

This was their chance.

"Alright Leevan, Normir," said general Hevman. "You know what to do.  Find the spell and break it.  When the cyclopses see Hurvun for what he really is, we'll attack."

"Right," said Leevan and Normir at once.

They wore their full body metal armor.  Leevan's was as ugly as ever, and Normir had made his own uglier so that their spell could work.  Leevan reached for his sun amulet, and Normir pulled out a gemstone.  Before they added them to the armor, Normir looked at Leevan with his one eye gratefully.

"Thank you," he said.

Leevan smiled.  He knew Normir meant that they had a chance to save Normir's people instead of fighting them.  They could because Leevan had figured out Hurvun's spell.  It was all thanks to him.

"You're welcome," said Leevan.

They added their amulet and gemstone to their armor, and disappeared.  Invisible, they cautiously approached.  A small platoon of ogres and slefah marched out.  The ogres were large, much taller than a human, with rough brown skin and one hand twice as large as the other.  They carried giant battle clubs in their hands, with the bigger end held in their bigger hand.  The slefah were of course like cobras with the head of an eel.  Once they touched the ground they didn't seem to slip down the mountain, so they must have been impervious to that spell.

Leevan and Normir snuck by them, invisible, and made it past the drawbridge and into the castle.  As of that moment, the siege of Ganhai mountain had begun.

The ogres and the slefah passed by their hiding place without seeing them.  When they were out of sight the army removed their beautiful objects from their hideous leather armor and reappeared.  The magicians all had sun amulets, but the soldiers each had some trinket.  A marble, a ring, anything.

General Hevman had a locket with a small painting of his family in it.  As far as he was concerned it was the most beautiful thing in the world.  He looked at the painting with his wife, three daughters and two sons, and smiled.  He was fighting to protect them.

The magicians in their colorful but torn and stained robes looked about, ready for this battle, when one of them asked, "Where's Maelin?"

They looked among their ranks, but Maelin had disappeared, and unlike the rest of the army, he had not reappeared again.