“Tell them to shield themselves,” Lyra said to her mages. “Every other mage is to shield himself and his partner.”

“That will cut the wind in half,” warned ValleyBreeze.

“Do it!” shouted Lyra. “They can not keep up the wind for long anyway. I will not sacrifice our mages at this stage of the battle.”

“A wise call,” commented General Manitow as he pointed out to sea. “They are lowering small boats and have dropped their sails.”

“Dropped their sails?” echoed Lyra. “They will be easy targets for our catapults.”

“I know,” nodded the general, “and so do they. They are sacrificing the ships to get their men ashore. Use your mages for other tasks. The battle has changed.”

Lyra ordered the mages to retreat as she watched balls of fire impacting on the Motangan ships. Hundreds of small boats dotted the water as the Motangan ships used their catapults to bombard the city. Sakovan archers raced to the waterfront, dodging missiles that were slamming into the buildings of the city. Lyra looked out at the first row of ships and saw that every one of them was burning to one degree or another. The Sakovan catapults were firing as fast as they could be reloaded, and the Motangan behemoths were taking a beating, but hundreds of small boats kept rowing towards the shore.

“Tell the mages to concentrate on the small boats,” instructed Lyra. “Fireballs are preferred at this point.”

“Third wave coming in,” warned General Manitow.

Lyra looked out to sea and saw a new wave of leviathans dodging the burning and sinking hulks of the second wave. The smoke rising into the air from the burning buildings and the burning ships was growing thick. She saw her mages aiming fireballs at the small boats with qualified success. Some of the small boats were capsized and a few were burning, but there were far too many of them to hit them all.