She felt a horribly unpleasant tingly sensation as the Essence around him gut-punched her infernal core. Yet, by the time she took a breath, a second jump from… the air? Took them even higher. Then another jump took them higher still.
“Almost there!” Astrea gasped with wonder. She saw the clouds get closer and closer, and yet when she thought she was about to touch them… she got wet. These things weren’t solid at all! They were just disappointing floating sacks of… wetness!
“Goal!” Bursting through the top layer of a fog bank that both obscured all vision and soaked the clothes, the sun bore down upon them as Artorian combined cloud-running with his hard-light platforms. It was in some way cheaper to do, even if it used more varied Essence types overall. It was far easier and more efficient to condense the air and water in the cloud and use that as a jumping-off point than to generate a light block from pure Essence. A chunk of ice might fall from the sky a moment after, but he wasn’t bothered about that.
Artorian was, however, bothered about his dwindling Essence. He’d not had a luxurious amount of time to recover, though calculating rough drain to distance they’d get to Jian. At the least. He’d need copious rest and food after, but since the place counted as safe… why not? They also had the spare time, even if he knew that cultivating constantly wasn’t going to be enough to get him in fighting shape.
Abyss-blasted C-rank failure! It took all his Essence like a hungry little Beast, and then sat on its laurels having done just about nothing! He’d planned to use Ember’s armor in the upcoming brawl, but that only mattered if he had the strength to move with it on. The occupants of Jian clutched their pearls and iron when an old man carrying a well-dressed girl fell from the sky. The impact shook the water in their cups, and made everything that wasn’t bolted down bounce a few centimeters.
Artorian had to let his daughter down, because he was exhausted. It was her turn to wrap his arms around her neck. His turn to be carried as he weakly pointed in the direction of the gates. He tried fussing at her, but she shut him down. “Tut tut tut. You’re never too old to get a little help!”
The gal! Where had she learned to be such a sass? Oh. Right. Ha! Artorian made a face, and it was Astrea’s turn for a hearty laugh as she got them both to the gates. A small entourage was already waiting for them, since their return had not been subtle. Par for the course with Artorian.
“Headmaster! You surviving back there?” Jiivra gave a toothy grin as she blocked the gate passage, with crossed arms. A hand rose from the slumped figure on Astrea’s back, showing a thumbs-up.
“Spry as a spring daisy!” Dressed in a lily-white robe, the celestial Essence instructor picked up their Headmaster like he weighed roughly the same as a block of cheese.
“Gained some weight, old man? Did you at least find what you abandoned us all for?” She raised a stern eyebrow, but Artorian made a proud hand motion at Astrea, who was looking at him with her mouth agape. Headmaster? Had this powerhouse cultivator just called him Headmaster? Her fragile, nosy elder?
“I did! I would like to introduce to you my daughter from the Fringe. Astrea!” The women locked eyes, and slowly shared a cautious wrist shake. A humming field buzzed between their hands right before the shake, they both knew their Essences were opposed.
“Now, if we ever have any infernal students, we’ll have an instructor! After she catches up on all the core curriculum of course. There’s so much to learn!” The old man gleefully clapped his hands together, wiggling on Jiivra’s shoulder. He stopped when he didn’t get back the commentary he expected.
“What? You both look constipated. Is it because the raider army is coming soon? We’ll be fine… as long as we can deal with the geese.”
Jiivra blinked and snapped from her discomfort, letting go of the infernal cultivator’s hand. She was conflicted, but something about that last statement didn’t sit right. “Did… you say… geese?”
Chapter Forty-Five
Tittering laughter burst through the Royal Advisor’s quarters. “So, let me get this in order… first you lose your Executor, then you lose your warbeasts, and lastly there’s a two-day delay on the entire operation because your encampment is in utter shambles?”
The skeletal figure bent over with laughter. Green viscera spilled from its lower jaw only to discorporate before ever staining the floor. Macabre applause sounded as it clapped bony hands together. “How Princess Meredith has fallen.”
The still-laughing figure didn’t even try to dodge as a golden ring crushed its skull. The hyena cackling faded into nothing as the bones collapsed into a heap, taking their time to frazzle into particles. “Do not use our real names, you scheming mongrel.”
Talons dug into the feathers of the Royal Advisor’s forehead. Itching at her skin, she again plucked out some wilting plumage, wincing from the injury; as those didn’t grow back. The stress had left her with quite the bald spot. Any mention of it got you fed to her pets. Currently, a sizable green marquise-cut gem embroidered on a face veil hid the stress-picked wound.
She was tired of both these abyssal setbacks, and the Vizier’s ceaseless taunts. The difference just a few years made. She was the one who had supported the notion that a larger army was better than a small well-trained one. So, what, under the heavenly sky, was she doing with the smaller, more experienced troops while the Vizier gathered thousands upon thousands under his banner. Sure, they all served the same mistress, but favor was fickle. Having tasted a life where she had it in spades, she despised the life she led without it.
Abyss those infernalists and their favors! She should have taken the honking things when she’d had the chance. Now those bleached bones shambled behind her every move like scavengers poaching a field. Each time she killed a lime-green glowing skeleton, or had one killed, another would come. Different in personality, but with the same implanted words to relay.
She had to conquer this menhir mountain. She’d do it without the influence of those green-mouthed blatherers, or the acid whispering of the Vizier. Of course more troops would be better, but no she would not wait. Certainly not another decade. Her standing was awful enough as it was. It was strike and succeed, or don’t bother returning to the mistress.
A gathering of several thousand raiders, and several hundred of her surviving infernal-bred pets could surely take a fallen town that lived in the muck. Overshadowed by a mountain inhabited by children. From what she’d heard, there was only a single warrior resting at the base with any kind of real power. A user of one of the ‘Imperious’ techniques. Her numbers would wash over him like a flood across the beach. Even a cultivator could only handle so many men.
Donning her goosefeather attire and crown, she rang a gong inside her private quarters. Settling herself upon a palanquin, the Royal Advisor didn’t react as a smattering of servants rushed in to carry her out. Her tent space was vast, even if there was a large amount of empty space around her resting location. Her reasoning was that one could not sneak unseen over ground without any nooks or crannies to hide behind.
The palanquin came to a halt before two captains and a handful of personal guard that now lacked an Executor to keep track of and ‘protect’ them.
“Well?” Her voice was a whiplash. Both captains winced as though they had taken a physical blow.
The secondary captain chimed in first. “No sign of the Executor, though we’ve confirmed her betrayal. We have many accounts of her and a prisoner being the main culprits to… erm…”
He was hesitant, but all eyes were on him. “Punting geese from their enclosures. Some exploded into feathery roasts on impact. When the fence had been thoroughly trashed, the Executor and prisoner booked it out of camp through the front gate, which collapsed a day before due to shoddy construction. The geese, now angry at everything and everyone, went on a feeding frenzy. Some of the more intelligent flock chased the perpetrators in the direction of our goal. We found nothing as to why the Executor betrayed us, only that she did.”
&nb
sp; The Advisor scratched her arms out of irritation, losing some feathers in the process. “Survivors?”
The main captain unfurled some vellum. “We’ve retained about seventy per…”
He stopped himself when he recalled the superior couldn’t understand Dwarven numeric systems. “That is, small losses to our raider troops, big losses to our Beast forces. The stragglers we recovered from the fern-hills reported packs of C’towls. We’ve weeded them from our retreat path, but we can expect them to be lurking up ahead. The camp is packed, and we can proceed with the assault. We should be at the outer edge of the Oldwalls after three moons, at worst.”
The advisor bit her thumb. “Attack as soon as we’re able. I want Xi’an overrun and the mountain path secured.”
The secondary commander interrupted her. “Jian, ma’am.”
The goose feather she’d plucked from her brow shot towards the captain like a kunai, embedding itself in his shoulder plate as if the bronze shell was made from paper. He could feel the bony protrusion bite into his skin and muscle, and fell to a knee as he tried to pull the sharp object free.
“Never speak over your superiors, servant. Your princess can read, and the reports say Xi’an. Do not cross me again, or another will take your place.”
One of the veiled personal guards did her best to bite back a smile. How the supposedly intelligent Royal Advisor had not noticed the Vizier had planted many spies amongst her closest, she could not guess. The information war was proceeding according to plan. ‘Meredith’ did not have the latest information to work with. All the better to set up her failure. “See to it that the task is done.”
The advisor’s personal little gong rang again, and the servants carted the palanquin back to her temporary safe haven. Striding forth, the veiled and amused personal guard helped the secondary commander back onto his feet. Sliding a vellum from her satchel, she deftly handed it over. “The orders and battle plans, sir.”
Grumbling unpleasantly, the secondary commander snatched the document and waved her off. To his delight, she listened and left quickly. The primary commander slapped a hand to his opposing pauldron, avoiding the wounded one. “Holding up, Bellor?”
Bellor grumbled and shook his head. “Infernal feathers cut deep, Ughert. Take the forsaken vellum, I’m going to the potion seller. I am in need of his strongest potions.”
Ughert took the orders vellum and unfurled it as Bellor left. He quirked a brow at some of the specifics. “Equip each attacking raider with a necklace-ankh of The Hand? See provision chest twelve-B for necklaces. That’s an… odd request.”
He rolled it back up and looked the other way. “Well… it’s in the vellum, so it must be correct. Bellor already got stabbed today, no need for it to be both of us. On to conquests.”
The trip was taxing to the raiders. C’towls ambushed them, geese rebelled, the Advisor marched them too hard through terrain that was too rough, and worst of all… when they arrived, it was raining. They stood in loose formation, facing the outer wall of Jian. Bellor supposed their setup could be called something akin to a line if the person drawing said line was very drunk.
The rain dropped heavy and loud. It pitter-pattered in thick layers against his armor, and he couldn’t see the end of his troop line through the deluge. Why was there so much awful rain? Wasn’t rainfall uncommon here, or at least light? He didn’t hear the crushing splatter of something heavy falling from the sky as it impacted the mud. This land had been tilled, and raiders sunk into the ground to the knee if they stood still too long.
It was the horses that were first to break rank. They couldn’t move properly in this weather. Cavalry was useless in this terrain, not that a flanking unit was going to be of great tactical assistance in a short siege. The ladders were ready. Again, he attempted to peer through the curtains of water.
*Crunch*!
Ughert jumped from his position as Bellor was transformed into pudding. His friend had been standing right next to him. Now there was a crushed stain under a large rock that had fallen from the sky. Literally fallen. Both the remains and the large rock sunk into the bubbling mud, drowned by the endless rains.
His vision snapped up, and through the crackling illumination of lightning saw more rocks descend. Granite chunks ranging from fist-sized to the width of the Advisor’s ego tumbled from above. The earthen weights plunged into his lines, and finally the cries of panic were louder than the constant droning rush of the deluge.
The initial tosses had missed, but the students on the mountain had plenty of time and ammunition to adjust their aim. They just needed to toss the rocks far enough. Gravity did the rest. Even being ‘eh’ accurate was good enough. It removed pieces from the board, and made the assailing force ever more miserable.
Artorian sat on a tiny stool, pensively stroking down his long beard as his Essence infused eyes kept track of adjustments. He called them out while air and water Essence students worked together to keep up the storm.
“A tired army is a defeated army! Ooh! Strength was good on that last volley, lads! Keep your output to about there, and let ‘em have it! No need to be conservative, just chuck it all down!”
Astrea was particular about her ammunition selections. Opting for only the finest, spikiest of carvings. She hurled them with a mad scream, venting rage and frustration at the faction that had caused her years of grief. Her roof-sized ‘pebbles’ squashed multiple people upon impact. It was interesting how those of the infernal persuasion leaned towards physical improvement, while those of the celestial seemed to favor Aura.
Far below them, Ughert blew on his horn, the signal for his assailing force to attack the walls. The raiders ran forwards… well, they tried to run, but it was hard to run in knee-deep mud with a constant downpour weighing you down. Oh, and falling rocks. Casualties numbered in the hundreds before the first raider made it to the wall.
A straight sword affixed to a ten-foot pole stabbed through a well-hidden hole. That slit in the walls was originally meant to fire arrows through, but it would suffice as a spear trap in a pinch. With the extensive reach of the polearm, it stabbed down the entire way. Braining or otherwise piercing deeply into the assaulting raider before retreating. A different spear from a nearby embrasure one level lower did the same.
Three such levels existed in the outer walls, and just getting to the wall was a challenge. The spears had an easy time dropping raiders, aiming and striking at slowed, labored targets.
Some ladders started to make it up. Rather than push the ladder from the walls, they served as self-made chokepoints for the militia manning the battlements. They walked on the walls, ready to shove the pointy end of a stick into an enemy. Stick quality didn’t matter so much when you had more weapons in the town than you had people to carry them. One did just as well as another, and the raider bodies piled so high against the outer walls that spear-embrasures became ineffective.
The dead were just piled too high. Ughert needed to sound the retreat, and he reached for his horn.
“Jiivra.” The celestial cultivator in question caught a metal disc she was distractedly tossing around.
“Headmaster?”
Artorian was cold in his speech. “The one with the horn… do you see him? Big pauldrons, Hand mark on the cape. Thirty paces south of Astrea’s last pebble.”
Jiivra made a sound that replied in the positive.
“I believe it may be time for Ivaldi’s performance of the four seasons.”
The ex-paladin cleared her throat, prepared to sing. “Which season?”
The Headmaster narrowed his gaze as he saw the captain reach for the horn. His tone slipped all the way down to icy. “Winter.”
Ughert had to shield his eyes as a break in the cloud layer blinded him. Light poured through a pathway of clarity carved through the torrential curtain. He managed to get the horn to his lips before a *fwiiii* sliced through his position.
Orange plasma rippled in the air behind something small and round that violen
tly spun. Its long arc coming to an end as it bisected not only him, but a curved line of troops at his rear. The disc bounced over the landscape like it was skipping over a lake, the cold instrument not stopping until it had carved through several horses, countless men, and a single Advisor’s attendant.
For a moment as he fell, Ughert could hear beautiful music. The angelic voice of the heavens rang out in song, heralding the end. Along with his life, the parting in the cloud layer came to a close. The last vestiges of his sight were drawn to the ankh-necklace that had slipped from the front of his mail shirt.
With his death, the symbol of The Hand came to life with a dull lime-green glow.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jiivra’s song of winter ended as a lullaby. Even though the effect of her disc had long faded, she finished the full verse regardless. A small round of applause erupted around her, as many of the students had never seen her sing in earnest before. There was a difference between a celestial song meant to request Essence from above, and one that invoked a more… direct effect.
Artorian had stars glimmering in his eyes; this time, he’d seen it. He’d captured a moment as he kept his celestial-fueled sight on the entire event. The moment of note had happened at the crescendo. When she began, her voice filled with the celestial Essence which created the technique. But, unlike a technique, there was no direct effect. Instead, the intent was to make a request.
The difference was so specific that it would be impossible to notice if he hadn’t known what to look for while also being aware of the peculiarities of choir chants. The only difference between this effect, and performing the technique directly, was the particular intent and impartation of will.
When Jiivra gathered her celestial Essence, she directed it… upward? Except, ‘up’ was an incorrect description. The physical Essence might be moving skyward, but that wasn’t the intended target. An epiphany struck him; it was being offered to the heavens directly. Just like there were mysterious ‘between’ spaces, it would make sense if ‘directionals’ were present as well. If the abyss had anything to do with ‘below’ and the heavens ‘above,’ then…
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 75