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(A/N: Also everyone I have a new novel a Dragon Age Inquisition novel named "From Couch To The Inquisitor", be sure to check it out and give some power stone)
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The catapults had to be destroyed before the infantry charge began. A wildly risky, incredibly dangerous idea clicked into place in his mind. Aerion turned and sprinted back toward the battlements, looking up at Aeloria, Balgruuf, and his command staff. "WE CANNOT ENDURE ANOTHER VOLLEY!" Aerion roared over the din of the panicked army. "THEY ARE BLEEDING US FROM A DISTANCE! I AM TAKING OUT THE SIEGE ENGINES!"
"How?" Commander Caius screamed down at him. "They are entirely surrounded by tens of thousands of infantry! If you charge them alone, you will be cut to pieces!"
"I am not going alone!" Aerion bellowed, pointing his gauntleted hand directly toward the massive, armored beasts rumbling on the flanks.
"I am taking the mammoth herd!"
Valerius stared at his Praefect as if he had lost his mind. "Sir! That is madness! They will loose a thousand arrows at you before you even cross half the distance!"
Aerion didn't care. He knew the extreme risks. Charging an entrenched army of thousands with only eleven mammoths was a suicidal tactic in any conventional military handbook. The beasts would suffer immense damage. Some of them might die. Aerion himself could be shot from the top of the mammoth, dragged down, and hacked to pieces by the mob.
But he had a trump card that no general in history possessed. He had out of the world Restoration magic fueled by an infinite reservoir of power. As long as he and the beasts were not instantly killed outright, he could continuously cast Grand Healing over the entire herd mid charge, knitting their flesh back together faster than the Stormcloaks could tear it apart.
"I am leading the charge!" Aerion commanded, his voice absolute. "Aeloria! Valdemar! Lydia! Jenassa! Hold the center! Tribunes, keep the shields locked! Do not advance until the catapults are broken!"
Without waiting for their protests, Aerion turned and sprinted toward the mammoth location.
The soldiers frantically pulled the heavy timber gates open as he approached. Aerion didn't slow down. He didn't summon a horse. He ran directly toward the massive, steel clad alpha male.
Using his immense physical strength, Aerion grabbed the thick leather harnessing draped over the beast's side, planted his boots against the steel plating, and vaulted himself violently upward, hauling his heavy, armored body onto the wide, flat expanse of the mammoth's back, right behind its massive skull.
He stood tall atop the living mountain, drawing his Ebony Greatsword.
He reached out with his mind, pushing his Animal Affinity to its absolute, breaking limit, linking his consciousness directly to the primal rage of the eleven beasts beneath him.
"TO ME!" Aerion roared, pointing his pitch black blade directly at the distant Stormcloak siege lines.
The alpha mammoth reared up on its hind legs, letting out a deafening, apocalyptic trumpet that shook the very earth, its iron capped tusks gleaming in the sun. The ten other mammoths answered the call, their massive, steel plated bodies surging forward out of the pens.
With Aerion balancing flawlessly atop the alpha, the eleven armored mammoths broke into a terrifying, thundering charge, crossing the barricades and surging out onto the open plains, directly toward the heart of the rebel army.
The earth of the Whiterun plains did not simply shake, it rolled, vibrating with a deep, concussive rhythm that traveled straight up the boots of the Stormcloak's camps and settled into the marrow of their bones.
Across the southeastern staging camp, the rebel soldiers stopped their preparations, their heads snapping up. What they saw cresting the gentle rise of the tundra was not a cavalry charge, nor a phalanx of Imperial steel. It was a nightmare pulled straight from the mythic eras.
Eleven fully grown mammoths, clad in interlocking, heavy steel plates, were thundering across the grass at full charge. Their massive tusks, capped in jagged, iron banded steel sleeves, gleamed viciously in the midday sun.
"Gods of our fathers..." a Stormcloak captain whispered, the blood draining completely from his weathered face.
The momentary paralysis broke as the sheer scale of the threat registered.
"ARCHERS! MAGES!" the Stormcloak officers began screaming, their voices cracking with sheer, unadulterated panic. "NOCK YOUR ARROWS! FIRE YOUR SPELLS! LOOSE! BRING THEM DOWN BEFORE THEY HIT THE BARRICADES!"
Hundreds of arrows blackened the sky, raining down in a desperate, frantic volley. A handful of Stormcloak mages, scattered among the infantry, hurled jagged spears of ice and roaring fireballs toward the oncoming beasts.
But standing atop the massive shoulders of the alpha mammoth, Aerion did not merely brace for the impact. He retaliated with the wrath of a demigod.
Aerion used his Eye of Magnus Skill, throwing the gates of his Magicka reserves wide open to the infinite, cosmic well of the Eye of Magnus resting within his dimensional inventory. He didn't just cast spells, he unleashed an nature level tempest.
From his outstretched hands, massive, overcharged Elemental Blasts, devastating spheres of intertwined fire, frost, and volatile lightning, tore across the plains.
The impact upon the Stormcloak lines was utterly catastrophic.
Before the mammoths even reached the vanguard, the rebel infantry was decimated. An Elemental Blast slammed into a tight formation of soldiers, detonating with a blinding flash. A dozen men were instantly incinerated, the concussive force blowing their charred armor fifty feet into the air.
Aerion swept his hands in a wide arc, casting a massive, continuous torrent of Chain Lightning that leapt from soldier to soldier, electrocuting dozens of men in their tracks, the smell of ozone and burning flesh completely overpowering the scent of the grassy plains.
A Stormcloak mage tried to cast a ward, but Aerion followed up with a barrage of Icy Spears the size of ballistas. The enchanted ice shattered the ward like glass, freezing the mage solid before the kinetic impact blasted him into hundreds of crimson stained shards.
The rebel lines fractured, screaming in terror as they were blown apart, burned to ash, and frozen in place.
And then, the mammoths hit the line.
The physical carnage was indescribable. The alpha mammoth, weighing over six tons and clad in heavy steel, bulldozed straight through the Stormcloak wooden palisades as if they were made of dry twigs. The beast swung its massive head, the iron capped tusks acting like lethal, armor piercing scythes. An entire squad of shield bearing Stormcloaks was swept aside in a single, brutal arc, their wooden shields splintering, their ribs shattering from the colossal blunt force trauma.
The other ten mammoths followed the alpha's wedge, trampling everything in their path. Massive, pillar like legs crushed fallen soldiers into the mud. Men screamed as they were impaled on the iron tusk sleeves and violently thrown aside like discarded dolls.
Some of the hardened Stormcloak veterans bravely stood their ground, desperately hacking at the beasts with steel battleaxes and thrusting iron spears toward their legs. The vast majority of the strikes glanced harmlessly off the thick, custom forged steel plating Aerion had painstakingly designed. Sparks flew as axes bit into steel, but the armor held.
However, with thousands of men swarming them, some attacks inevitably slipped through. A spear found the gap behind a female mammoth's knee, drawing a spray of thick, dark blood and a bellow of pain. A fireball from a desperate rebel mage scorched the unarmored trunk of another.
Aerion did not let them fall.
Balancing perfectly atop the charging alpha, Aerion seamlessly wove his left hand into a continuous, pulsing aura of Grand Healing. Brilliant, warm waves of golden Restoration magic washed continuously over the herd. The moment a spear pierced a mammoth's hide, the golden light rushed to the wound, instantly knitting the muscle and sealing the flesh.
While his left hand kept his siege engines alive, his right hand continued the absolute slaughter.
But Aerion knew that sheer physical destruction was not enough to break an army of this size. He needed to completely divide their attention.
He shifted his focus to the school of Conjuration. Tapping into the infinite well of Magnus, he tore the fabric of reality apart.
With a series of deafening, spatial cracks, massive purple rifts to Oblivion tore open directly in the center of the panicked Stormcloak camp.
Aerion did not summon one or two creatures. In a display of magical supremacy that defied all known mortal limits, he summoned twenty Atronachs simultaneously.
Seven towering Flame Atronachs erupted from the rifts, hurling spiraling streams of fire into the tents. Seven massive Frost Atronachs, hulking golems of jagged black ice, slammed their heavy fists into the rebel infantry, crushing men into the dirt. Six crackling Storm Atronachs floated above the chaos, raining devastating lightning bolts down upon the fleeing officers.
The Stormcloak southeast camp descended into absolute chaos and hell.
Unimpeded by the distracted, slaughtered infantry, the mammoth herd crashed directly into the artillery lines. The heavy timber catapults, which had been preparing for a second volley, were smashed into kindling. The mammoths trampled the heavy wooden frames, shattering the iron winches and crushing the stone ammunition into the dirt.
"TURN TO THE EAST CAMP!" Aerion roared, pulling sharply on the thick leather reigns harnessed to the alpha.
The herd wheeled heavily to the left, leaving the twenty Atronachs behind to continue slaughtering the Stormcloaks soldiers of the southeast camp. The mammoths thundered across the open grass, bearing down directly on the Stormcloaks' eastern staging ground.
The forces in the east had precious minutes to watch the destruction of their sister camp, and they were vastly more prepared.
As the mammoths closed the distance, the eastern Stormcloak commander orchestrated a massive, concentrated volley of heavy crossbow fire and concentrated Destruction magic. The air hummed with the lethal swarm of projectiles.
The impact was brutal. Steel tipped bolts struck the mammoths' armor with the sound of a violent hailstorm. Several bolts found the gaps in the leather skirts, sinking deep into thick muscle.
The mammoths roared in pain, their pace slowing slightly as they waded through the concentrated fire. Aerion seeing this, immediately pouring more and more Magicka into his Grand Healing spell, forcing the golden light to close the wounds as fast as they were opened. He retaliated fiercely, hurling a massive Fireball that detonated in the center of the crossbowmen, incinerating the formation.
The alpha mammoth slammed into the eastern barricades, its iron tusks shattering the heavy spikes, and the herd bulldozed into the second camp. The carnage repeated itself, tents were trampled, men were crushed, and the siege lines were ripped apart.
But as the herd began to smash the second battery of catapults into splinters, a deep, vibrating rumble traveled up through the alpha mammoth's massive back, resonating directly into Aerion's boots.
It wasn't a roar of triumph. It was a guttural noise of the mammoths fatigue.
Through his Animal Affinity, Aerion instantly felt the physical condition of the herd.
They were exhausted.
They had sprinted across the plains, smashed through two fortified military encampments, and suffered dozens of shallow wounds. Aerion's Grand Healing was flawlessly repairing their flesh and bone, but it did not magically restore their stamina, nor did it numb the agonizing, blunt force pain of thousands of weapon impacts against their armor. The beasts were overheating, their massive chests heaving violently, their muscles burning with lactic acid under the immense weight of the steel plates.
Aerion looked toward the northern ridge. The third and final Stormcloak staging camp was positioned far to the north, a significant distance away.
He calculated the distance, the fatigue of the herd, and the rapidly reforming Stormcloak infantry lines. If he forced the mammoths to charge the north camp, they would be bogged down in the center of a fresh army. Their hearts would give out from exhaustion, and they would be swarmed and slaughtered, regardless of his healing magic.
He had done enough. The southeastern and eastern catapults were entirely destroyed. The immediate threat of bombardment to the city was neutralized.
"WE FALL BACK!" Aerion commanded the herd through his magical link.
He pulled the reins hard, turning the alpha mammoth back toward the towering stone walls of Whiterun.
To cover their retreat and ensure the Stormcloaks did not immediately pursue the exhausted beasts, Aerion tapped the Eye of Magnus one more time.
He ripped twenty more purple rifts into the fabric of reality, right in the heart of the ruined eastern camp.
Another twenty Atronachs, a terrifying mix of Flame, Frost, and Storm, erupted into the material plane, immediately engaging the surviving Stormcloaks in a chaotic, elemental bloodbath.
As the mammoth herd began their heavy, lumbering retreat back across the blood soaked plains, the view from the outer walls of Whiterun was one of absolute, paralyzing shock.
Jarl Balgruuf stood at the very edge of the stone parapet, his hands gripping the stone so hard his knuckles were white. Standing completely frozen beside him were Irileth, Hrongar, Commander Caius, the three Imperial Tribunes, Aeloria, Valdemar, Lydia, and Jenassa.
They had all anticipated the mammoths. They had fully expected the massive beasts to cause heavy physical destruction and break the enemy lines.
But none of them had anticipated Aerion.
The sheer, impossible magnitude of the magical supremacy he had just unleashed had left the entire command staff utterly speechless.
"By the blood of the Divines..." Tribune Valerius whispered, his eyes wide as he watched the distant, continuous explosions of lightning and fire tearing through the Stormcloak camps.
"I have fought in wars across Tamriel," Irileth murmured, her usually stoic face displaying raw, undeniable awe. "I have seen the finest mages of the Aldmeri Dominion and the College of Winterhold. But I have never seen a mage wield such power like that. It is... it is monstrous."
"Forty Attronachs summons," Aeloria breathed, her eyes tracking the distant, towering forms of the Frost Atronachs smashing through the enemy lines. Even as the Dragonborn, whose soul possessed the raw power of a Dovah, she recognized that the sheer Magicka required to sustain forty simultaneous summons, while continuously casting highly complex Grand Healing and devastating Destruction spells, was a mathematical impossibility.
"He is not just a battlemage," Hrongar said, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. "He fights like one of the ancient Arch-Mages from the mythic eras. Shalidor himself could not have leveled a camp that quickly."
Jarl Balgruuf swallowed hard. He looked at the smoking ruins of the two Stormcloak camps, then at the retreating forms of the mammoth herd, and finally back to the towering High Elf riding atop the alpha.
A sudden chilling realization settled over the Jarl.
If Aerion had chosen to ally with Ulfric Stormcloak... if that towering, masked Elf had decided to march against Whiterun today... the city would already be burning. The walls would have been shattered, and the garrison would have been incinerated before they could even draw their swords. Jarl Balgruuf felt an overwhelming, immense wave of gratitude wash over his terror.
The mammoth herd finally reached the safety of the Imperial barricades, lumbering through the massive gaps the legionnaires had hastily pulled open for them. The beasts were covered in mud, blood, and sweat, their chests heaving like bellows, but they were alive.
Aerion guided the alpha right up to the base of the outer stone wall.
He needed to solidify his position, but he also needed to protect his greatest secret. He could not let the Jarl, the Legion, or the Thalmor spies hiding in the city realize that he possessed infinite Magicka. If the world believed he had no limits, he would become a target for every power hungry faction on the continent. They needed to believe that this apocalyptic display had nearly killed him.
Aerion cut the connection to the Eye of Magnus. He then put on a natural act of physical fatigue of the intense ride, the adrenaline crash, and the sheer mental exhaustion of calculating the battlefield wash over his body completely.
He didn't just put on a show, he aggressively exaggerated it.
Aerion climbed heavily off the back of the alpha mammoth, pulling himself up onto the stone parapet. He made sure his movements were sluggish and strained.
The moment his steel boots hit the stone walkway, he let his knees buckle.
"Aerion!" Aeloria cried out, instantly rushing forward.
Lydia moved just as fast. The two warriors caught the towering Praefect under his arms before he could collapse against the stone.
Aerion leaned heavily against Lydia's steel pauldron, his head bowing, his breathing ragged and harsh behind the bronze mask. He let his arms hang loosely, projecting the image of a mer whose magical core had been completely, dangerously depleted.
"I have you, my Thane," Lydia said fiercely, bracing her stance to support his immense weight. "You are safe."
"Get him water!" Jenassa barked at a nearby guard, her crimson eyes flashing.
Aerion reached up with a trembling, gauntleted hand and pulled the mask of Krosis away from his face. His golden skin was pale, covered in a sheen of sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead. It was a masterful, highly convincing performance.
Jarl Balgruuf rushed forward, his face a mixture of deep concern and profound, unadulterated awe.
"Praefect... Aerion," Jarl Balgruuf breathed, looking at the exhausted High Elf. The Jarl reached out, gripping Aerion's shoulder firmly. "I... I do not possess the words. What you just did out there... it is beyond the realm of mortal comprehension."
Aerion forced a weak, strained smile, coughing softly. "The catapults on the east and southeast are broken, my Jarl. They will not bomb the Plains District today."
"You saved thousands of innocent lives," Balgruuf said, his voice thick with emotion. He looked out over the smoking plains, then back to Aerion. "I swear to you, by the Nine Divines... I cannot even fathom how we would have stopped you if you had worn the blue of the rebellion. I could think of a way to stop the mammoths, eventually. But you? Doing all of that? It is madness. I thank the Gods you chose to stand with Whiterun."
"I stand... where I am needed," Aerion gasped, carefully managing his breathing. He gently pushed himself up, standing on his own two feet, though he kept a hand heavily rested on the stone parapet for balance.
He pointed down at the mammoth herd. "Have my men guide the herd back to their pens on the flanks. They need water, and they need to rest. They are done for the day."
"Consider it done," Tribune Valerius said, immediately shouting the orders down to the legionnaires below.
But the reprieve was devastatingly short-lived.
Across the blood soaked plains, the situation in the Stormcloak lines was rapidly shifting. The rebel army had been severely rattled by the sheer, terrifying devastation of the mammoth charge, the apocalyptic magical bombardment, and the forty Daedric Atronachs currently fading back into Oblivion. They had suffered hundreds of casualties in a matter of minutes, and they had lost two-thirds of their siege artillery before firing a second volley.
But the Stormcloaks were Nords. And Nords did not retreat when they were bloodied, they grew enraged.
The surviving Stormcloak officers, recognizing that their tactical advantage had been shattered, resorted to the only option they had left.
A massive, deep throated war horn blew from the northern camp, echoing across the valley. It was answered by the surviving horns in the east.
"They are reforming!" Commander Caius shouted, pointing a trembling finger toward the horizon.
The sea of blue tunics and chainmail surged forward. It was not a calculated, methodical advance. It was a massive, enraged, furious charge. Thousands of Stormcloak soldiers, screaming their battle cries, raised their axes and swords, sprinting across the golden tundra directly toward the outer walls of Whiterun.
"THEY ARE CHARGING!" Hrongar roared, drawing his massive steel claymore.
"ARCHERS! NOCK ARROWS!" Irileth screamed from the battlements, her voice slicing through the panic.
The Battle of Whiterun had truly begun.
Aerion stood on the wall, leaning heavily against the stone, maintaining his facade of magical depletion. He would not join the frontline melee; he didn't need to. He was a Praefect. His role now was to command the anvil.
He looked down at his three Tribunes standing on the wall beside him.
"Tribunes!" Aerion commanded, his voice shedding its weakness, replacing it with cold, hard military authority. "Get down there! Lock the shield wall! Valerius, you hold the absolute center! Hrogar, Livia, reinforce the flanks! They are angry, and they are going to hit the barricades like a tidal wave! Do not let a single rebel cross the timber!"
The Tribunes saluted instantly, drawing their swords and sprinting down the stone stairs to join their legionnaires on the ground.
"Imperial Legion! Lock shields! Brace for impact!" Valerius's voice echoed over the courtyard below.
Five hundred heavy steel shields snapped together in perfect, flawless unison, creating an impenetrable wall of crimson and steel behind the wooden barricades. The front rank dropped to one knee, planting their knees to stewd their weapons firmly.
But the Whiterun militia, stationed slightly behind the Legion and on the lower platforms, was faltering. The sight of thousands of screaming, blood mad veterans charging directly at them was breaking their nerves.
"Hold the line!" Commander Caius yelled, his voice cracking, darting back and forth along the wall in sheer panic. "Aim for the vanguard! No, aim for the flanks! Gods, there are too many of them!"
One of the militia captains on the ground looked up, terrified by the conflicting, panicked orders. "Commander! They are going to overrun the barricades! Should we fall back to the inner gates?"
"Yes! Fall back!" Caius screamed, entirely losing his composure. "Withdraw to the second tier!"
Before the disastrous, cowardly order could even begin to take effect, a blur of dark leather and ebony steel moved across the battlements.
Irileth closed the distance to Commander Caius in a fraction of a second. She grabbed the balding Imperial by the heavy steel collar of his armor and violently hurled him backward, throwing him bodily onto the stone floor of the parapet.
"You sniveling coward!" Irileth snarled, her dark eyes blazing with absolute fury. She pointed her ebony sword directly at his throat. "If you issue a single order to retreat, I will gut you where you lay!"
She turned her back on the pathetic commander, stepping up to the very edge of the battlements, her voice carrying the terrifying authority of a seasoned assassin and a battlefield commander.
"NO ONE FALLS BACK!" Irileth roared down at the Whiterun militia. "YOU STAND YOUR GROUND! YOU DRAW YOUR BOWS, AND YOU MAKE THEM BLEED FOR EVERY INCH OF DIRT! ARCHERS... LOOSE!" Thousands of bowstrings snapped in unison. A massive, black cloud of arrows launched from the Whiterun walls, arcing high into the sky before raining down mercilessly upon the charging Stormcloak vanguard.
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[Main Panel]
Name: Aerion
Race: High Elf (Altmer)
Health: 930/930
Stamina: 970/970
Magicka: 980/980 [External Capacity & Regeneration: ∞]
Level: 245
Skills: Animal Affinity (MAX LEVEL), Fast Skill Levelling (MAX LEVEL), Fast Magic Mastery (MAX LEVEL), Instant Shout (MAX LEVEL), Dragon Master (MAX LEVEL), Eye Of Magnus (MAX LEVEL), Summon Dragon (MAX LEVEL), Destruction (Fire(+5)/Lightning(+3)/Frost(+2)) (Level 13/7/76), Restoration (Healing(+2)/Purify(+2)) (Level 76/98), Alteration (Level 43), Illusion (Level 62), Conjuration (Necromancy/Summoning(+2)) (Level 37/0), Persuasion(+3) (Level 28), Smithing(+1) (Level 79), Sneak(+1) (Level 64), One Handed(+2) (Level 0), Two Handed(+1) (Level 29), Lockpicking (Level 55), Archery(+1) (Level 0), Enchanting(+1) (Level 23), Light Armor(+2) (Level 10), Block (Level 70), Pickpocket (Level 8), & Heavy Armor (Level 59)
Shouts: Fus Roh Dah (Force Balance Push), Tiid (Time), Krii (Kill), Feim Zii Gron (Fade Spirit Bind), Su (Air), Laas (Life), Yol Toor (Fire Inferno), Kaan (Kyne), Zul Mey Gut (Voice Fool Far), & IIZ (Ice)
[Inventory Panel]
1x Small Sack, Poacher's Axe, the Golden Claw, Arvel's Journal, Inkwell & Quill, Thief Book, Parchment Rolls Of Mammoths Farm And Loan, Ebony Claw, The Mirror, Ring of Pure Mixtures, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), Deed to Tundra Homestead, Dawnbreaker, Traveling Backpack (Supplies), Vampire Armor, Vampire Boots, Movarth's Golden Ash (Unique), Potion of Healing, Mage Boots Of Weight, Master Robes Of Destruction, Staff of Jyrik Gauldurson, Gauldur Black Bow, & Dwarven Battleaxe
2x Common Soul Gem (Empty), Black Soul Gem (Empty), & Potions of Plentiful Magicka
3x Potions of Minor Stamina, Petty Soul Gem (Filled), Potions of Minor Magicka, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), & Greater Soul Gems
5x Mod Chests
8x Iron Arrows, Ancient Nord Arrows, & Common Soul Gem (Filled)
9x Potions Of Minor Healing
10x Lesser Soul Gems
12x Black Soul Gem (Filled)
Weight: 49.21 KG / 785 KG
Septims: 252,867