SESSION 6 - ASSAULT ON FORT GEB
Session 5 | Log | Quotes | Session 7

On the eve of the battle at Fort Geb, most of the family was up late with last-minute preparations.  It was soon noticed, however, that the troops were also up late - sleep had somehow become impossible within the confines of the fortress, for mortals and gods alike.  Much discussion ensued about how best to deal with this problem, and eventually it was decided that the full army would remain at Fort Geb, their morale kept up throughout the night by members of the family mingling with and giving speeches to the men.

In the morning, the Assyrian army was visible in the distance, a hellish storm in the sky above it.  Both army and thunderheads advanced, until the edges of the storm reached the battlements of Fort Geb.  There it halted, unable to pass over the fortress itself - and then it began receding, though the Assyrian army pressed forward.  This initial sorcerous victory by Weret further inspired the sleepless soldiers of Amber, and as soon as they were in range, volleys of arrows (joined by those of Amun and other gods) rained down upon the Assyrians.

The Assyrians were not without their own surprises, though.  Baal, the bull-headed Assyrian god of storms, advanced forward with the front lines, a cart of strange globes at the ready.  He began hurling these missiles over the walls of the fort, and where they landed they burst with deadly bolts of lightning and deafening thunderclaps, inflicting large casualties upon the defenders of the wall.  Baal himself was apparently enchanted with a protection from arrows, as his hide turned away even those fired from Amun's bow.  Harmakhis and Unut returned fire on a larger scale, though, swatting boulders they had stockpiled down into the advancing army.  After several attempts, Harmakhis was able to send one into the cart of the lightning bombs, destroying Baal's ammunition.

By that point, though, Baal and the army had advanced to the outer retaining wall of the fortress, and Baal himself began pounding down the brickwork with a large club, thunderclaps accompanying every swing.  Keket realized it would be disastrous to lose the outer wall so early in the engagement, and assembled a small elite force of soldiers to lead on a sortie against Baal's position.  Her superior tactical skill was apparent, and Baal fell back with the army rather than face Keket alone.  Keket taunted Baal, but the bull-headed Assyrian had the patience to gather a small force of elites to him before charging her position.  These troops were apparently warded similarly, and Keket's troops were unable to fight them effectively.  The two smaller forces crashed into each other, resulting in a swirling melee centered around Keket and Baal.

Keket appeared to outclass Baal, though he seemed to shrug off some of the deep cuts her chains made in his flesh.  Harmakhis, in sphinx form, leapt down from the wall to join the fracas, and Shu swooped down as well.  Shu concentrated on killing the Assyrian mortals, while Harmakhis fought his way towards Baal.  Then, one of the Assyrian soldiers suddenly rushed Keket from behind and stabbed her through the back, with a strength and speed far outclassing any mortal.  Before this surprise assailant could strike again, one of Amber's soldiers from Keket's force engaged him, fighting with a similar, godlike level of skill.  It seemed there were two shapeshifters in the fight, one on each side, and evenly matched.

Harmakhis reached Baal just before the Assyrian brought his great club down on Keket, and the two wrestled and rolled through the battle, crushing both allies and enemies in a contest of massively superhuman strength.  Keket managed to keep her feet and tried to reach Baal, though she was losing blood rapidly and her injury was severe.  The shapeshifter on Amber's side told her to get back to the fort, and though she was reluctant, she allowed Sobek and Amun (who were leading reinforcements to her position) to take her back to the fort.

Shu saw the viciousness of the struggle between Baal and Harmakhis and came to Harmakhis's aid, harrying Baal from above while he waited for an opening.  Eventually he found it, and brought his claws down on Baal's back.  Baal managed to rear back and gore Shu in the shoulder, but that gave Harmakhis the chance to put out one of Baal's eyes, and the fight went poorly for Baal after that.  Eventually Harmakhis was able to pin him down and tear his heart out.  Meanwhile, Shu had cut off the anonymous Assyrian's retreat to the main army, and made short work of him, claiming the Assyrian's heart and displaying a previously unseen level of competence in combat.  The anonymous Amberite had disappeared, presumably back into the forces Amun and Sobek had led out to recover Keket.

During the battle of the gods, Unut had been watching from the walls above.  At about the time that Keket and Baal first clashed, she noticed a young girl, a child of perhaps twelve years, standing on the wall beside her.  The girl was dressed in a simple white dress, and Unut assumed (since there were no children present at the fort a few moments before) that the child might be Maat.  The young girl pointed back away from the battle, where a dark figure was running across the desert towards Amber, already well past Fort Geb.  Unut gave chase immediately, but lost the trail a few hours later, after crossing into Amber.  She came back later, with Bast, and together they followed the trail to the sea a few miles east of Tanis.  The trail was odd, not footprints, but like their quarry was dragging something or had a different means of moving.

Keket awoke to find herself in Memphis, under the care of Horus.  She was on her feet again shortly, though weak, and had an argument with her father about his relationship with Bast, and whether Amber would need a queen.  Keket then went back to Fort Geb to check on the battle.

Amber's forces were able to keep Assyria out beyond the outer walls of the fortress, and prepared to be besieged by the Assyrian forces.  Khnemu and Weret worked together to Trump a shift of soldiers through to Bahariya, where they could rest, and then later Khnemu and Wadjet performed a similar trick to send soldiers to Rosetta to sleep, since there was still no sleeping in Fort Geb.

Harmakhis took the hearts from the two Assyrians to Anubis, to see if he could do anything with them.  Anubis didn't have much to add, but Weret took pieces of the hearts to use in a ritual she hoped would help locate Assyrian gods within the Assyrian army by way of vultures who desired only to eat the relatives of those whose hearts Harmakhis and Shu ripped out.

There was much speculation about the anonymous benefactor who came to Keket's rescue, and plans were made to deal with the Assyrian army.  These turned out to be mostly unnecessary, though, as within a few days the Assyrians withdrew from Fort Geb.  Keket planned a few, highly effective raids on the retreating army, sending them away with approximately half of the troops they brought to the battle.