Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1)

by Scott Browder

They walked between the rows of wagons, stopping at a nondescript cart pulled by a single horse. “I’m not worried about little raids, Erin. If the Deskren are mounting a full invasion, there are entire armies on the move. And my options so far…”

  “No half measures,” she said sternly. “You do what makes the most sense for the mission; you’ve never been a glory hound.” Her face twisted with disgusted outrage. “They enslave children,” she snarled before calming herself and continuing. “The man I married stood against such evils back on our old world. He wouldn’t be the same man if he didn’t here as well.”

  “I’m not going to disparage myself, woman,” he said with a feral grin and pulled her into another embrace. “If I commit to this, I absolutely can break the Deskren. All that’ll take is time.” His savage grin faded, replaced with an uneasy expression. “But it could be decades of war, hon. What about after?”

  “How can there be an ‘after’ if they aren’t beaten? I won’t wear a collar like a dog or bring children into any world ruled by the likes of them.”

  His slumped a little as he held his better half, a more resigned and somber mood now floating between the two. “You know me better than these people, know what it’ll mean if I do this. I explained my options to you when I checked them last.”

  “Every day we wait, they take more innocent people, Jacob. As long as you don’t come back from this as some silly dancing dandy, you know I’ll stand with you no matter what it takes to finish them.” She pulled back, fixing Jacob with an intense gaze. “I married a good man, not a nice one.”

  He threw back the flap on the end of the wagon, revealing a bed of folded blankets just wide enough for a person to lay comfortably within. “All the extra defenses have been prepared, and they all know what to do to keep reinforcing them,” he said as he stepped onto the running board at the back of the cart. “You’re in charge until I get back.”

  “If you aren’t awake by the third day, we’ll move the convoy. I know we can’t stay in one place any longer than that.”

  Never one to drag out any form of goodbye, Jacob leaned down and kissed his wife, then turned and crawled into the wagon to lay down. A brief mental command to pull up his status menu, and he was once again in another place, oblivious to the surrounding world.

  His wife had recounted her Class Selection to him, her other self being a nurse dressed in hospital scrubs in a hospital waiting room. Her presentation of the Class Avatars had been a gigantic, sprawling facility with different types of specialized doctors and healer classes, with a few Life- and Death-aspected mage classes scattered here and there.

  Jacob’s own was very different. Instead of a waiting room, he found himself in an Army recruiter’s office, but with a younger copy of himself sitting behind the desk. So similar to the room he’d walked into all those years ago, before his first enlistment and service, and later his trip through West Point.

  His other self didn’t even get up from the desk as he had the previous visits when Jacob had come here to review his choices. He simply nodded and sipped from his mug of coffee before speaking.

  “So this is it, then.”

  “There’s a lot that needs doing, and I don’t see anybody else doing it,” Jacob replied with a shrug.

  “That’s how it goes. We swore the Oaths when we signed up, and the spirit still pulls, even if we’re far away from where we swore. Some things are simply intolerable and require that hard men do hard things.”

  “Then let it be done.”

  Recruiter-Jacob nodded and waved toward the door. “You don’t need me out there; we both know what you’ve chosen.”

  Jacob gave a somber nod, then turned and opened the door. He stepped out, not into an arena, a hospital, or a ballroom, or any of the other manifestations that had been described to him. No…

  Jacob Ward’s Class Selection landscape was a battlefield. Or The Battlefield, thought Jacob grimly.

  It stretched from horizon to horizon, running into the distance both ahead and behind. Near the limits of his sight, explosions flashed, and thunder tore the sky as dirt, rubble, and bodies were churned up by the chaos of the conflict. Clouds the color of gunmetal hung low and ominous, and the scent of burned things, both organic and synthetic, permeated the air.

  He walked along trenches and behind barricades, threading his way between artillery emplacements and the wreckage of tanks and vehicles from every era of war. Different versions of himself operated various pieces of equipment or stood next to them in uniform, all greyed out and faded, despite the perfect detail. He’d made his choice before entering this place, so they didn’t call out to him. They merely discharged their roles in silence as jets thundered above, and the ground shook from rolling tracks, marching boots, and bombs falling from the sky.

  The war-torn landscape was endless, but it did seem to have themed regions, where one age of warfare was more pronounced than others. He’d been here several times before, and knew roughly where his destination was. As he walked, the trenches and barbed wire gave way to more shallow ditches and walls of pikes, with infantry marching in lockstep to advance toward the field of death and destruction. Tanks and vehicles gave way to horses and wagons, but the eyes of all his copies remained the same—iron determination, and a relentless dedication to getting the job done. The eyes of the soldier.

  Here, the avatars were beginning to show up in full color—options that were closer to or more compatible with what he’d finally decided to choose. Men in crisply pressed dress uniforms stood between men in gleaming, medieval full plate to their left, and men in modern sets of body armor to their right. Though these, too, stood as possible directions for his Soul (as he had been informed after his first, abortive Selection), they, like those before, stood silent. No Class like [Dawnbreak Commander] or [Ivory Gauntlet] for Jacob, no—those classes leaned as much toward the glory itself as they did to accomplishing the mission. Capable as they were, he harbored no desire for such gaudy, frivolous things as medals and recognition.

  For what seemed like half a day or more, Jacob’s feet carried him past interminable battlefields, endless tableaus, silent commemorations of death, destruction, and war. Finally, Jacob’s journey drew to its end. The clouds seemed to press further in as the machines of war faded behind him, the scream of warfare fading to the throaty rumble of distant ordnance, heavy with expectation. Before him stood a formation of at least fifty armed and armored riders, lances rising above them like jagged teeth, raking the sky. Blood, black and steaming in the wintry air, dripped down their shafts. Their armor wasn’t polished, nor was it even uniform between each rider and horse, but all of it was functional, and the care spent on maintaining that function was obvious.

  One rider sat ahead of the formation. Like his brothers, he and his mount faced the battlefield; however, as Jacob drew closer, their heads turned to meet him. His armor, too, set him apart from his fellows—it seemed to darken at the edges, leaking shadow into the air, leeching the light from the space around him. His mount, a massive Percheron, exhibited the same effect. His expression was cold and calm, his motions economy itself.

  Jacob approached the imposing figure, neither saying a word until he approached to within a few paces, causing the massive warhorse to snort and stamp its hoof hard enough to throw up mud and dirt. Silence quickly returned, and Jacob and the rider watched each other for several long moments.

  “It’s time,” he said to his reflection.

  “Indeed.” The reply was given in a matter-of-fact tone, cold and deep, and in that moment, with that word, the muted thunder and roar of distant battle faded away.

  “I intend to crush the Deskren, and any who enslave others. This world doesn’t know war, not truly.”

  “They will,” rumbled the reply.

  “I’ll bow to no kings or kingdoms,” Jacob said. “I swore my oaths to one nation, and they still hold. Those who follow me will hold to them, as well.”

  “Then seek the [Oracle], in due time. S
he may fashion a treaty to set you apart from the Bargain of Kings. More than this I cannot say,” spoke the horseman.

  “Then there’s nothing more to discuss.”

  The man made no reply, merely tucking his lance back against his shoulder and leaning toward Jacob slightly to extend a hand. He reached out and shook that bloodied, mailed gauntlet. In the next moment, the eternal battlefield vanished.

  The [Blacklance Battlemaster] opened his eyes, gritting his teeth as the changes to be wrought upon his Soul began to ravage his being.

  Chapter 19: Experimentation

  Morgan Mackenzie sat upon a magically raised earthen seat, happily chewing perfectly parboiled [Shardback Shellipede] and wishing she had some cocktail sauce from Earth.

  “This tastes better than lobster, Lulu,” she said as she licked her fingers. “If I had drawn butter, we’d really be on a roll. Oh! Dinner rolls… Really miss those now.”

  The previous evening’s rains had continued into night, and after cooking her assailant in a giant makeshift crab pot, she’d simply built a new and bigger stone house to camp in. [Terrakinesis] made moving the dirt itself almost trivial. The biggest difficulty now was holding the shape of what she wanted in her head long enough for the Earth Mana to guide the material into place.

  Within her range—easily over a hundred feet by her rough estimation—the effort of moving the dirt itself was almost negligible below a certain critical mass. Beyond that range, things became much more difficult, the difference between lifting a weight close to her body or with her arm extended.

  She couldn’t rip up literal tons of earth and rocks and throw them about, but it came close. Morgan felt pretty confident that, if she was willing to risk another bout of debilitating illness, she could burn her Mana all at once with [Spell Surge] and cause a localized earthquake.

  “Not that I want to shake the earth right now, but it’s cool that I can ,” she mused out loud.

  After finishing off several small strips of lobster-like flesh, she turned back to the corpse of the giant shellipede. One thing she definitely wanted to study was the mana crystals growing along the edges of its shell segments, its mandibles, and the tips of its many legs. To her [Mana Sight] the night before, it definitely seemed as if the shield the monster had projected came from the crystals that grew out of it.

  “Even if I can’t figure out that kind of shield right now, maybe I can activate it…”

  It turned out her instincts were correct in this instance. Upon closer inspection, her enhanced vision revealed a pattern of odd swirls, repeating themselves throughout the edges of the crystals. The pattern was denser and finer along the ridges that circled the creature’s broad and armored head. It seemed to continue down along the edges of those fearsome mandibles as well.

  After tracing the swirls with both finger and mind, Morgan let out a low, impressed whistle. “This thing looks like it was born to counter magical attacks, Lulu.”

  The scrubby puffball was busy wurbling its way along the inside of one of the shellipede’s segmented armor sections. Its ministrations let the chitin’s natural iridescence shine through where the viscera had been obscuring it. Lulu purbled briefly in protest as its mistress pulled it away from its current task, but happily continued cleaning once she placed it on another segment.

  Taking the shell in her hands, she inspected it more closely, now that the last traces of meat and greasy tissue had been exfoliated from its curved inner side. She could feel the faint, lingering traces of the creature’s Mana within the crystalline structure, interwoven through the organic chitinous material. The magically reflective properties of the enchantment seemed to be projected outward by the denser layers of crystal on the edges of the shell.

  Carefully, and with an extremely light touch of Mana so as to not trigger some drastic or destructive effect, Morgan supplied a bit of magic to the runic patterns of the shell. The result was a brief manifestation of the same rippling shield, just an inch or so offset from the surface of the shell section.

  It wasn’t one single piece, either. Her own Mana was powering the portion of the shield closest to where her fingertips made contact with the curved shell, and the barrier was reflected on the other side, in overlapping parts like a snake’s scales.

  “Ah,” she exhaled. “So it’s not one contiguous shield enchantment. It’s actually interlocking segments of armor like its shell, but for magic instead of normal attacks.”

  Morgan raised the segment of shell ahead of her as she spoke, holding it in both hands. Her grip spasmed then, weakening, shell slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers. “Damn,” she cursed. “What hap—”

  Realization struck like a bolt of lightning—she’d run afoul of her [Skyclad] nature! “Figures,” she muttered. It seemed inspecting the shell section was one thing, but trying to use it was another entirely. Turning back to the uneaten head of the beast, she looked down at the almost solid crystal mandibles.

  “There’s gotta be a way I can power this up without holding it.”

  Dropping the segment of shell, she pulled the head upward from the carcass by one hardened jaw-crystal. Its appearance lent itself most readily to the pincers of some large beetle; despite her misgivings, her [Primal Instinct] lay quiet.

  The crystal wasn’t as dense as the ones she’d encountered before climbing the cliffs and encountering Moghren. It also didn’t pull at her Mana so hungrily. Instead it hummed with anticipation, as if it were waiting for…something. This feeling was confirmed as she tried to push some of her own magic into the crystal. The other crystals had drained her Mana on their own, while the lighter-hued mandible simply allowed her to pour it into the glassy structure at her own pace.

  As her magic filled the crystal, the mandible began to glow with a familiar violet light. That’s my color of fire, she thought, then continued out loud, “I wonder if other people have different colors to their magic. Moghren gave off shadows, my fire is purple…”

  Her [Crystal Affinity] didn’t give her the ability to shape the structure like her Earth skills did with dirt and stone, but she could sense the grain of the mineral formation, and the area under the greatest strain. Bracing one foot on the outside of the mandible, she pushed more of her Mana into the microscopic cracks at the base of the shard, and pulled up while twisting it in her hands.

  A glassy creaking followed by a sharp crackling sound heralded the crystal jawbone coming free, sending Morgan stumbling backward out of her new shelter. She stumbled a few steps before catching her balance and gazed down at her prize.

  Jagged teeth of pale pink and milky white crystal glimmered in the morning sun, the mandible easily two feet long and as wide as Morgan’s hand. The outer side of the curving piece was formed of smooth facets with irregular outlines, curving around to narrow into a serrated inner edge, and a wickedly sharp tip.

  She turned it from side to side in the light, looking closely at the cracks that had spread from the broken base up into the rest of the piece of crystal. Her [Crystal Affinity] allowed her to sense how the flaws had propagated through the mineral structure with a detail and certainty that would make any geologist or gem cutter jealous.

  “I didn’t have [Earth Sculpt] the first time I molded dirt with magic, either.”

  Concentrating on the cracks running through the mandible, Morgan slowly poured her Mana into the crystal. “Still too fast,” she murmured to herself ,as a tinkling sound emanated from the glassy chunk when the flaws began to expand. Slowing down the flow of magic to the barest trickle she could control, she could feel the substance begin to warm up and shift in her hands. It vibrated with an uncomfortable buzzing, as if it were about to fly apart; a thrumming she could feel in her hands that increased whenever the magic flowed too fast or too slow.

  With strange, stuttering crackles, the flaws in the crystal began to mend. She could feel the stresses fading away in the undamaged parts of the jaw, as the fractures closed back up along the grain of the material. And as the last
of the shattered lines melded back together, she gained another skill.

  You have learned the spell [Gem Sculpt]! Understanding the mineral structure of crystals has allowed you to guide their formation and alteration!

  Morgan felt a sense of smug satisfaction when she read that notice; soon afterward, she felt the strain of manipulating the crystal ease somewhat. Now she could levitate it above her hands, although any distance over a few inches became increasingly more difficult. As with Earth magics, all that remained was practice and time to level the skill and the related affinity.

  Turning back to the dropped shell segment, Morgan crouched and stabbed the mandible into the ground using her magic. Molding the soil around it to secure it in place was a casual afterthought with [Terrakinesis].

  She spent almost a third of her Mana, pouring it into the crystal until it glowed with a bright pink light that cast glimmering shapes onto the ground and surrounding trees around her. Then she lay the shell segment against the upright mandible and stepped back in expectation.

  Nothing happened.

  “Well, that was disappointing, Lulu,” she said to the puffball as it wurbled its way over to investigate the latest activities of its mistress. “But I shouldn’t be surprised it’s not that simple…”

  The crystal held plenty of Mana to power the shell’s enchantment, but it needed something more than proximity or touch to activate it. Reaching out with just her raw Mana to both items at the same time merely gave her a headache that left her sitting inside with her head between her knees for at least an hour while she recovered.

  Getting back to her feet, she reached out to the Mana she’d stored within the crystal. Her own supply had long since recovered, but the magical energy within the mandible still resonated with familiarity. It hadn’t changed in any way. She could add more to it, and then pull it back to smoothly replenish what she was lacking. It was while she was playing with this new information that she realized, as the crystal contained Mana that matched her own, it was possible to feel and manipulate it as though it were a sort of extension of her magical body.