I doubted I had stunning HVs myself. But as they say, A for Effort, right?
Hours after reaching this stunning conclusion, we laid eyes on Myszno for the first time. The Western Tashkar Range reared up over the flat grasslands like towering sentinels. The black mossy mountains were so tall they vanished into the clouds, and in the morning of our arrival, they were streaming with mist that poured down into crystal-clear lakes far below. The air was like nothing I’d ever smelled. Clear, dusty and grassy-sweet, it filled me with a strange longing. But once we passed into the shadow of the mountain, it turned bitterly cold.
With our improved stats - visible and hidden - Karalti was slightly faster than the warships and was able to fly much higher, to a maximum ceiling of twelve thousand feet. My Tuun physiology and the Trial of Marantha let me breathe at that height, but we cruised at just over five thousand. Even at this great height, we came nowhere near the height of the mountains. Our entry point was Vastil Pass, the major East-West trade route between Myszno and the rest of Vlachia. From a mile above the ground, it looked like a complete clusterfuck. Camps sprawled out like old bloodstains from the mouth of the pass, turning it into a bottleneck. They were disorderly, with no obvious signs of planning. There was no farmland, no settlements, and nothing to eat. The land around the camps was a dirty red-brown color, trampled to mud by wagons, animals, people, and their cargo. I bet it smelled like shit. Literally.
“Woah. That’s a lot of people,” Karalti remarked. “Is that the vampire guy’s army?”
“No. I’m pretty sure those are refugees, but we need to drop about two thousand feet if I’m going to make out any detail.”
Karalti dipped her wingtip and soared lower, descending in a lazy spiral around the perimeter of the camp. The leather saddle creaked under my hands, tightening with the sudden cold as we descended into mountain shadows and the temperature plummeted. Water vapor beaded on the crystal visor of my helmet, freezing in fine patterns across the glass. Swallowing against the change of pressure in my ears, I pushed myself upright and leaned forward on the saddle grips so I could see around her neck. “Yeah, no way those guys are undead. It doesn't look like a Sathbari plainsmen camp, either. Definitely refugees."
"You’re right. It’s all scared people. Smells bad." Karalti pulled into a thermal, filling her wings like sails. She pointed with her snout at one part of the camp. "Look, down there. People are fighting."
I closed my eyes for a moment, then flared them like a bird of prey and zoomed my vision to the area she was indicating. My HUD took over from my eyes at that point, magnifying the scene below to a superhuman level. Close to twenty people were arguing over a wagon loaded with livestock, with some trying to drag the goats and chickens off, and others standing on the wagon, beating them back. Everyone down there looked ragged and desperate. Unless you were a good hunter, food was hard to come by on the steppe.
“There’s nothing we can do. We have to focus on what we’re here for.” I grimaced and shook my head. “The only thing we can do is win.”
“Yep.” Karalti shifted down ten feet or so into the oncoming wind, and my stomach dropped like I was on a rollercoaster. “Hold on. I’m gonna lead the ships to the Pass!”
“Think you can wing it without resting for a while?”
“Yeah! I’ve still got half my stamina! I’ll be fine!”
Our course took us through Vastil Pass and then south. The Pass was a bleak, rocky canyon that zig-zagged through the mountains like a thunderbolt. The sun barely penetrated, and it was frigid and nearly lifeless, save for goats picking their way along the sheer cliff faces. But something had lived here, once. At the halfway mark, ruins began to appear. Fortresses built into the cliffs, and dragon-sized lairs crowded with crumbling wreckage. We turned a corner and came upon rows and rows of monolithic statues. The tall, pillar-like draconic statues loomed like graveyard angels over the road to either side of us, their features worn into nothingness by the elements.
At the end of Vastil Pass was a massive gateway, and there, Myszno transformed again. I’d been expecting the province to have a cold, alpine climate, like Pre-Collapse Germany or Switzerland. It didn’t. Protected on all sides by mountains, it was a warm, verdant greenhouse of brilliant green forests and startlingly dark soil. The soaring hills and steep valleys were thick with sycamore and walnut, cedar and birch, fading out into pastures and meadows glittering with flowers. The lakes and rivers were a brilliant clear blue. There was an airship port and a village near the Pass, both of which were currently overwhelmed by refugees. Roads wound down toward one of the great cities of the province: Litvy, which was built in a valley beside one of the lakes. Slender spires reached up toward the sky from inside the city walls, like something out of an Elven fairytale.
From here, the journey was a lot more technical for the airships. We flew wide around Litvy, heading steadily south through the narrow mountain passes. It became warmer and more humid the further we went. We knew we were almost there when ash and an unmistakable sweet, rotten stench carried to us on the wind. Soon after that, we spotted our destination: the Endlar.
The Demon’s fires raged on the far southern side of the swamp, gnawing at the edge of the waterlogged forest that separated the army of the dead from the colossal fortifications of the Prezyemi Line. It was easy to see why the Demon’s march had been halted here. The highlands of Vastil County dropped abruptly and dramatically into the lowlands of Racsa, the county containing our intended future castle. On the plateau, the great rivers of Myszno converged into a glacial delta controlled and shaped by two titanic stone dams. They choked the rivers at the neck, forming lakes that in turn spilled out into smaller rivers and their tributaries that wound around a series of islands and tumbled off the plateau ridge as five great waterfalls.
Along that ridge was the Prezyemi Line itself: an enormous, implacable wall that was probably twenty miles long and added another thirty feet to the tall cliffs. The ramparts were wide enough for six hookwings to run side-by-side. Bastions, each set about a thousand yards apart, glowed with the light of distant torches.
When we were about half a mile away, my HUD generated a holographic map of the landscape beneath us, tracing the main landmarks of the battlefield. There was a small town surrounded by a much larger tent city sprawled out behind the western half of the wall, which was bounded by the dam and its lake to the north. The structures on the islands to the east were the logistical buildings that allowed the defense to produce different Mass Combat units. On a promontory that jutted out between the two largest waterfalls was a towering star-shaped fortress: Korona Fortress, the headquarters of the defense.
Korona faced the Endlar from the edge of the cliff wall, where had a commanding view of the barren, muddy hellhole the war had made of the swampland in front of it. About eight hundred yards of No Man’s Land lay between the Prezyemi Line and the edge of the drowned woods, all of it mud studded with the wreckage of abandoned farms and a village. As I was taking all this in, I noticed a side-quest alert. I leaned up on the saddle and swiped it in.
New Quest: Survey the Line
You have reached the place where Myszno’s fate shall be decided: the Prezyemi Line. To learn more about the area, survey it by focusing on and labeling different features of the environment. The more thorough you are, the better knowledge you will gain.
Reward: Skill EXP, Knowledge (Grade Varies)
E, X and P: my favorite letters. I accepted, and a ticker appeared in the HUD overlay. I leaned to the right to get Karalti to drop a wingtip and began counting. Each time I spotted something, a point was added to the ticker and a label was added to the virtual overlay. I dutifully marked off all the unit production structures, cannons, bastions, gates, siege equipment, the stone barracks and the militia encampment behind the wall, the bridges linking them, the strongest and weakest points in the defenses. It was like the JADE-IV holomaps we were given in the Army during mission briefings. Actually… now that I thought about
it… it was exactly like a J-MAP, except that I didn’t need an augmented reality helmet to see it.
My experience paid off here. I was used to doing this exact task IRL, and after I hit forty-two tags, my HUD pinged.
[You have new knowledge: the Prezyemi Line (A-grade)]
[You have acquired a new map: the Korona Fortified District]
[Congratulations! You have attained your first A-Grade Knowledge! +100 EXP, +10 Skill EXP.]
A-Grade!? I’d never gotten an A for anything academic before. To my delight, a cluster of labels appeared on the map overlay. Including the name of the town behind the Western Wall.
I cracked up laughing. “Karalti. See that town down there? You will not believe what that place is called.”
“What?”
“Slutlava. I am not even joking.”
“That’s… not a Vlachian name. Or like… a name from anywhere.”
“No, it’s not. Someone used a fucking random place name generator, and those poor bastards down there ended up living in Slutlava.”
Karalti and I giggled together over that, and then I remembered that I had A-grade Knowledge I needed to check out. I surfed over to the ArchemiWiki, curious about what my survey had revealed.
The Prezyemi Line (A-Grade Knowledge)
The Prezyemi Line (Prez-yeh-mi) is wall of ‘fortified districts’ that separates Vastil County from Racsa County, the historic Southern frontier of Vlachian-occupied Myszno. Utilizing the dramatic geography of the Krivan Valley, the Line was constructed by Lawislaw Corvinus the Burned during his conquest of Myszno after the end of the -
“Hector! There’s an assault on the center wall!” Karalti’s voice cut the narration short, and my combat HUD jumped to life.
“Fuck.” I squinted at the battlefield, and sure enough, a straggling line of dark shapes were cutting the waters of the swamp. No sooner had we spotted it than the watchtower bells began to ring, and the defenses of the bastions along the wall came to life. I tapped the group voice chat. “There’s a small assault force attacking west, about 500 yards from Korona. Karalti and I are going in, you copy?”
Suri replied with crisp efficiency. “Copy that. Orozlan is coming into view of the Line now. Will advise crew of maneuver, over.”
“Uhh... roger? Over?” Rin didn’t have Suri’s radio experience, but I couldn’t fault her for trying.
“You can just say ‘Rin copy’, sweetie,” Suri replied.
“Oh. Sorry (-w-);” Rin sent an emoticon, which flashed up briefly on my HUD.
Snorting to myself, I looked back over my shoulder to see if I could spot the Orozlan, but then something out of the corner of my eye snagged my attention. My head snapped around, just in time to see a squadron of swiftly moving shadows slide through the fog generated by the waterfalls.
"Should we go back?" Karalti, who didn't have my extreme peripheral vision, was oblivious.
"No. Descend five hundred and hold. I just saw something."
The dragon tilted against the roaring wind and dropped quickly enough that my ears popped. As we leveled out, I saw the shadows again, and then the creatures that were making them: ten drity brown vultures almost the size of Karalti. They were sneaking up on the bastions that projected over the river by using the waterfall spray for cover, flying out of sight of the artillery that fired on the rest of the staggered assault force. Their target wasn’t the wall, but the sprawling camp behind it. Civilians, and-or refugees.
"Look sharp, three o'clock," I ordered. "Are we close enough for you to scan them?"
"Maybe? I think so." Karalti swiveled her head in that direction, and I smelled ozone as she began to work her magic.
"Ten bogeys on the refugee camp, holding formation from low 5, low 5. We’ll engage once in range." I rattled off the PM to Suri and Rin before the spell took hold, closing the dictation box just before my HUD pushed in the monster description:
Kalxat
Unit Rank: 5 (Level 12)
Faction: Napathu Undead
Health: 883/883
Morale: 110% (Flock boost)
Speed: 100 (Very Fast)
Melee Attack: 35
Melee Defense: 26
Abilities: Nauseating Stench, Spread Disease, Anti-Artillery, Aerial Charge.
Buffs: Causes Fear in enemy units (-2% morale), boosts morale of allied ground units (+2% morale), +20% damage to Artillery units on successful charge
Vulnerabilities: Vulnerable to Anti-Air tactics.
Terrifying undead birds of prey also known as Plague Rocs, Kalxat are hideous, huge vultures worshipped as avatars of Ensi, the god of victory in Napath. Intelligent and social, they work in flocks to spread disease and dismay using their foul acidic breath weapons, and their attacks can cause blindness, deafness, and uncontrollable nausea.
"Ten Level 12 monsters. Let's figure they get a bonus to attacking as a group, so plan for damage to about Level 16," I muttered. To Karalti, I said: "Think we're ready for our first dogfight, Tidbit?"
"Yeah! Roast turkey for dinner!"
“Kentucky Fried Vulture. Gross.” I pulled my spear off my back, just as my HUD chirped and Suri patched in.
“Second Company Dragoons are armoring and will assist with quazi once in range,” she said. “If you have trouble, kite the bogies back toward the Orozlan for support. Otherwise, kill ‘em dead. Over.”
"Roger-dodger." I banged the top of my helmet with a fist, then unclipped the safety straps that connected me to Karalti's saddle and knelt up against the pummeling wind. "Okay, girl: let's see if all this training’s paid off."
“Okay! Hold on!” Karalti dropped her wing and slipped out of the thermal, swooping toward the vultures as they dived at the fortress below
Chapter 12
There were three main factors in aerial combat that made it radically different to ground combat: gravity, velocity and altitude. It was a bit like rock-paper-scissors. Gaining altitude meant sacrificing velocity, but having altitude gave you some key advantages. For one thing, your pointy-stabby bits – spear, dragon claws, breath weapons – faced down toward the enemy when you were above them. You also had the ability to weaponize gravity by diving. Diving meant sacrificing altitude for velocity, which was great if you needed to evade or hit hard, but reducing altitude put you underneath the pointy-stabby bits of the enemy. From my earliest training days with Karalti, I'd somehow known this instinctively - that aerial combat was, at its heart, the struggle for altitude and velocity against gravity.
“Diving in three!”
I bent over the saddle grips: knees tight, ass up, head down. “Ready!”
“Here we go! Wheeee!” Karalti folded her wings and almost lazily rolled over into a plummeting, arrow-like dive.
Gravity pressed me against her back like a huge crushing hand, greying my vision around the edges. A normal man would have passed out. No matter what fantasy soap operas would have you believe, getting on the back of something going and diving at hundreds of miles per hour with your head above your feet was not a good idea. Even with my head down, my magically fortified body had to shore up against the intense g-forces as we hit two hundred miles an hour, then two fifty. The gut-clenching torque felt like it would tear my tongue out the back of my head. The adrenaline hit was damn near sexual. I fixated on the target as the roar built in my ears, ready to jump.
The vultures swelled in size as we grew closer, and I felt the muscles of Karalti's body flex beneath the saddle - my cue to cling on with all my strength as she snapped her wings out to full extension. “Get ready!”
The dragon’s jaws parted, and blazing liquid fire boiled out. The stream hit one of the monsters square in the back, ripping a line of oily, sticky flames along its body. Before it had time to squawk, Karalti struck it with her hind feet, flexing her killing claws deep into its body, then flung it from the sky.
[Sneak attack! x3 damage!]
[Ghost fire does 1010 damage!]
[Gore does 216 damage!]
[Y
ou killed Kalxat!]
[You gain 115 EXP! Karalti gains 115 EXP!]
[Congratulations! Karalti is Level 9!]
The Kalxat’s head shriveled and its skull charred. It spun out of the sky like a thousand-pound hunk of charred meat. Karalti swelled in size as she leveled up, the saddle adjusting to fit. Even as she was growing, she rolled and pulled us away from the other eight pissed-off birds. Screaming with rage and confusion, they swirled into formation and chased us up into the air.
"Jump, now!" Karalti cried. “While we have altitude!”
My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely hear the roar of the wind. I tried to leap off from my sprinter’s crouch, but then I saw how far we were from the ground. As soon as my lizard brain began screaming, my legs locked up. Fuck. In Taltos, I'd trained by jumping onto enemies on the ground from a maximum of fifty feet. We were at around three thousand and climbing. I’d skydived before and loved it, but this time, there was no parachute.
“Hector! What are you doing!?” Karalti seesawed out of the way as one of the Kalxat shot past us, leaving a gut-churning stench in its wake. I managed to stay on her back as she swung back and righted. Breathing. Focus on your breathing.
“Sorry. Try again.” Sucking in air through my nose and teeth alike, I opened and closed my hand on the saddle grip until I could let go of it. That was an old stunt trick. If you can will yourself to open your hand, you can will yourself to lift off your bike. I looked down, and saw a pair of malicious, glowing eyes gaining on her tail. “Okay, here comes the next one!”
“Go! I’ll catch you!” Karalti's back became rigid, giving me a stable platform to spring from.
I had to trust her. I forced my hand open, got to my feet, and before I could scare myself into another freeze, I triggered Jump and sprung out into the open air like an acrobat. “WaaaaHOOOO!”
There was a thrilling moment of weightlessness, then the brief, entirely reasonable panic of being in free-fall without a parachute. But the Kalxat got real close, real fast. I landed on it with the Spear, plunging the blade into the Kalxat’s back in a blaze of dark fire.
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