As you command, my King. Serena said with black determination in her voice. His rage was her rage, and his desire for vengeance was mirrored in her gaze. They were both satisfied at the performance of the Scourge on this day, but neither could leave the battlefield unfinished.
Slate made his way toward the bay with Serena as his shadow. The Imperial ships were making their way toward the city already. They were speeding toward the city like pods of dolphins. Black smoke belched from their smokestacks, and now Slate could see that the rails were crewed by men and women in brightly lacquered lamellar armor. Even from Slate’s position in the sky, he could see cerulean blues, verdant greens, and crimson reds. Some, he noticed, were the same color as Serena and his coloring. Their silver and gold armor reflected the light of the rising sun.
It’s a shame that their pretty boats are going to sink in the harbor.
Serena merely chuckled in response as Slate pulled his wings close to his body and dove toward the water. Shale remained above the surface, beyond the range of retaliation, to act as a way of navigation for the King.
Slate broke the surface of the water and activated his Aspect of Cleansing Flames when he felt the freezing chill from the water penetrate his protective scales. The light from the sun illuminated the water and made it easy for him to see. Just ahead, he could see the dark shadows of the Imperial boats churning through the water. His reptilian body was just as suited for the water as it was the air so long as he kept his wings tightly tucked to his body. He noticed a plethora of creatures underneath the waves, some even more monstrous than he who shone like beacons of mystical might in the deep, but they ignored his presence.
He began swimming toward his first target and utilized his Aspect to provide thrust for his motions. His undulating body parted the water like a knife through butter, and he arrived at his destination in a matter of moments. Using claws that glowed with clue-white light, he rent the hull of the ship until jagged lines tore through the metal like it had become paper. He continued slicing until he felt the ship’s momentum slow, and the water begin to take hold of the vessel.
Satisfied, he continued to the next ship and performed the same task. He had taken a calculated risk by traveling underwater. The ships themselves didn’t have any external opening in the side or the bottom. They were simply and functionally made, and as a result, the Imperials couldn’t summon a response to his assault. There weren’t many of the ships in comparison to the city of Koral, so he flitted from to the other, opening them up like cans, and consigning their contents to the deep. It took hours to get them all, and toward the end of his retaliation, they had almost entered the harbor itself. The last one had made it so far as the dock, and when Slate had finally sunk it, he realized that the forward hatch he had noticed earlier, had been open in preparation for the Empire’s imminent landing.
As it sank ever deeper into the water, the contents of the ship made Slate curious. There was a black ring of fire that was nestled on the other side of the hatch. The portal spun independent of the water that now pressed it from all sides. As Slate watched, four warriors strode out of the portal as if they were walking onto dry land and immediately started panicking in the water. Slate felt his eyes widen as he realized what the portals were meant to accomplish.
That’s why they needed so few ships! That’s why they were contented to wait!
The Empire used the ships merely as a method to transport these portals. Someone had misinformed the Imperial troops on the other side. More and more soldiers filtered out of the portal as the ship settled to the bottom of the harbor. Despite appearances, the seafloor was a long way down from the surface. Slate didn’t have to worry about holding his breath, he was a mana-forged creature, but the Empire’s troops couldn’t breathe underwater. The Scourge King clinically watched them as they kept coming out of the portal and trying to swim to the surface. Most never made it. He guessed that they were more than 1,000 feet below the surface, and most people couldn’t hold their breaths that long. Worse were those that had been able to make it to the surface. They had shed their armor and weapons and held their breaths as they swam. It seemed that no one had ever taught them about the dangers of rapid underwater ascent. Slate could see the moment when the air in their lungs exceeded their capacity to hold it. He watched as blood spurted from their mouths, and bubbles trickled from their orifices as the sea reclaimed their corpses.
He continued to watch their deaths as if it were high entertainment. They deserved this for planting the blade in his back. Even better, the Empire had no proof of what had sunk their fleet. Even if they had suspected him, he could claim innocence, and nothing short of divine intervention would reveal him to his enemies. At that point, the prospect of a deal would probably be a moot point anyway. Once the portal cut out like a flickering lightbulb and the Imperial troops stopped dying underwater, Slate swam his way to the coast where Serena was waiting for him. She had watched the entire show through his eyes, and he could feel her primal exultation over the clever victory. When he rose from the water and transformed, she clutched him close and pressed her lips against his own. The sight of so much blood and death excited something in her, and she felt the need to show him there and now. Once they were finished, Slate transformed back into a dragon, and the pair made their way westward.
It was time to return home and deliver vengeance upon the assassin, who had only a passing familiarity with his death. Slate intended to make the relationship permanent.
CHAPTER 25: THE ENCHANTRESS ADVANCES
GENERAL BLUDTYR SLAMMED her fist against the table, startling the scout that shared the room with her. General Grievum, relaxed against the wall behind her with his arms cross, merely scowled.
“What do you mean, Carrarn was defeated?” She asked icily.
The scout was frightened by the news he had brought to the general, but Bludtyr noticed that whatever sway she had over the man, his memories seemed to have a greater one.
“The Magister prayed to the Lord of Darkness for guidance in finding the enemies that had been plaguing our forces over the last month.”
Bludtyr waved a hand, “yes, yes, you imbecile. I know this part already. After the most recent attack on our forces, he located them, and you were tasked with pursuing them.”
She glared at the man, and he wilted underneath her violet gaze. “I want to know what happened afterward.”
The man swallowed visibly. “Chaos,” he replied simply.
Grievum stood up straight, his patience visibly strained. “Stop playing coy, messenger,” he said. We want to know what happened, and you can either willingly tell us, or I’ll rip your soul from your bones and ask it questions until it decides to answer.”
The messenger’s face grew wan at the general’s threat, and he saluted. “Of course, Generals. I apologize.” The Generals were internally relieved. Finally, something had penetrated the scout’s fear of the other party to prize open what he had seen. They remained quiet while the scout tried to compose himself.
“I had heard of the Scourge before; every Vallyr has. I had heard about Lucidus’ dragons.” The man was staring at the wooden table in front of him. He casually tapped his fingers against the surface. The tapping was a small reminder that he was in the present and not the past. The feeling of whirls in the woodgrain as they brushed against his fingertips kept him centered enough to continue.
“What we saw out there was different than the priests had described. We chased them for the better part of the day. The sun had long gone over the horizon, and the woods became shadowy places with the silhouettes of trees standing like silent sentinels in the forest. Occasionally, the sound of wildlife or the crunch of a boot breaking through an old branch was enough to cause one of the Cultists to fire a bolt of energy at the presumed target.”
The man looked up and met the eyes of the two Generals. “They never hit anything. Something was messing with our minds out there. I swore I could see creatures in the dark slavering over my i
mpending death. They were…they were just fucking with our heads.” He said bitterly.
“The Cultists told us it was mental influence from the Scourge, but we couldn’t tell the difference between the apparitions and the monsters themselves. They were nothing like the legends described. They weren’t noble, vainglorious creatures; they were weapons of war. Worse, they were hungry, and we became food.”
The scout swallowed heavily and continued through parched lips. The man was aware that the Vallyr considered them as food as well. The Vallyr subsisted off of strong emotions. If the scout had to guess, the two Vallyr Generals were feeding on his fear even as they were talking. The two were old enough to hide when they were feeding, but he was pants-shitting terrified. He hadn’t even told them about the worst part.
“If it had been just the land-bound creatures—horrible as they were—that attacked us, we still would have likely triumphed over their forces and removed the threat to the rest of the army.” The scout sighed, “but it wasn’t just land-bound Scourge that we faced.”
Both of the Vallyr leaned forward. Grievum went so far as to place both of his massively muscled arms on the table and lean against it for support. The Vallyr watched the scout with eyes like predators. They were searching his eyes for each scrap of information the man would knowingly or unwittingly provide. “Go on,” Grievum said quietly. He had interceded in the conversation because Bludtyr had never been very patient in situations such as these. She would rather flay the man and let his soul do the talking than wait for him to finish his dramatic performance.
“They had a dragon,” the scout said flatly. “It wasn’t like the dragons from the legends. It wasn’t some wise creature that looked like it wanted to exchange riddles and stories.” The scout’s eyes had a faraway look in them. “No,” he continued. “The dragon was only there for one purpose. It was there to destroy and to consume us. I watched as Kacoa was…” he broke off, voice thick with emotion.
“What did the dragon look like,” Bludtyr asked. She was musing over the scout’s reports. She hadn’t thought that the Scourge would reclaim so much of their former strength before she had the chance to invade Bastion. From her study of the previous Scourge, the dragons came in two forms. The smaller variant was only about a story and a half tall. They were deadly, but they weren’t impossible to defeat. However, there was a much more monstrous type of dragon in their potential arsenal. She had personally read the war reports and journals of those that had faced the Scourge dragons. They had been powerful enough to destroy entire cities on their own, and they were one of the most dominant species in Somnium. That had been in the past, at the height of the Lord of Light’s power. Lucidus had been much reduced since then, and Bludtyr’s own Lord of Darkness was ascendant.
It took a few moments for the scout to answer the General’s question; he was trying to collect his thoughts and answer in the best way possible. “First, the dragon was the color of a bared blade. The moonlight glinted off of her silver skins and refracted the light around her. Her scales were thick yet pliant; I saw multiple Vallyr try and stab her. The attacks were blocked by her armored hide effortlessly. I watched them flex and repel the weapons without much difficulty. Even piercing weapons seemed to have no effect on her natural armor.”
The general nodded supportively. That was surprisingly good information, and they wanted to know if the observant scout had noticed anything else that would be useful when facing the dragons.
“There were barbs along the spine of the dragon that culminated into a blade at the end of the tail. It looked like it was the length of a short sword. It punched through flesh and armor with equal ease. It was long, at least as long as the rest of the body, and prehensile enough to be used as an accurate weapon.” The scout paused as if remembering something important. “I watched one man use a sword to block the blade, and the dragon’s weapon sheared right through the blade as if it were no harder than a silk kerchief.”
“The next things I noticed were the claws and the teeth—of which there were many. The jaw was filled with small needle-like teeth. The lower jaw could separate, and the entire throat opened up until the dragon’s maw resembled that of a snake’s mouth. She swallowed more than one person whole. They screamed until they hit the back of her throat. She never looked bloated or slowed by the flesh she had absorbed, so I would guess there is some magic involved. Additionally, there is some kind of paralytic in her spines, claws, and teeth. I noticed a single swipe could put down a full-grown Vallyr in a couple of moments. I couldn’t guess how powerful the venom would have to be or what effects it has on living creatures.”
Grievum and Bludtyr were beginning to frown. It seemed that the dragons resembled wyverns in their weaponry. Venom, spines, and a plethora of claws seemed to be their weapons of choice when they were hunting for their food. Grievum said out loud what both of the generals were thinking.
“Sound more like a wyvern,” he observed.
The scout nodded enthusiastically. “That’s what Captain Kacoa said before…well, before he was eaten.”
Bludtyr raised an eyebrow, impressed despite herself. “He was eaten, you say?”
“Yes, General,” the scout replied with a queasy look. “It differed from a wyvern because it had four limbs instead of two. However, it had the same lean predatory look as a wyvern. Outside of the coloring, it didn’t match the old legends at all.”
Grievum shot Bludtyr a look. “Could the histories be wrong?” he asked her. “It has been a long time since the Scourge dwelled on Somnium.” His tone was suggestive. Bludtyr frowned in response.
“No, I don’t think so.” She said thoughtfully. There’s no reason for them to be wrong. The Vallyr aren’t people to lend themselves to artistic creativity.”
Grievum nodded. He didn’t understand what she was saying, but he wasn’t going to advertise that to scout in the room. He liked to live by the expression that it was better to remain silent and let people think you were a fool rather than open your mouth and confirm it. All he had wanted to know was whether their information was wrong or not. Art was for those people who didn’t know how to swing a sword.
“So, the Scourge has evolved.” He said quietly.
Bludtyr waved a hand and dismissed the scout from the room. She waited until he had exited the drafty chamber that the two generals had acquired for their use. It had once been the high lord’s war room, but now Bludtyr and Grievum were using it to plan their campaign against the Scourge.
“It seems that they must have,” Bludtyr replied while looking around the room at the maps and troop dispositions that had been pinned there for their use.
“It’s strange,” she continued. “The Lord of Light is well known for her lack of flexibility. She’s the exact opposite of Nocturnus. She deals in absolutes. Things are either good, or they are evil. Her followers tend to be the same.”
Her eyes settled on a particular stretch of the map where Magister Carrarn had been slain. “Yet,” she mused. “This Scourge seems to adapt to their environment and learn from their mistakes. Carrarn reported that when his obelisk was destroyed, it took out a significant number of the enemy as well.” She looked over at Grievum sharply. “They shouldn’t have been able to trounce his forces the second time. Either they’ve replenished their numbers—which is doubtful—or they learned from their mistakes.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Grievum grumbled. “We’re not facing them in the woods; we’re going to assault their city. They won’t be able to get up to their tricks if we pin them down within Bastion.”
Bludtyr didn’t reply to him immediately. It would take them a couple of weeks to reach Bastion. The snow was already on the ground, and food shipments from outside of the city had been scarce. Most of her forces were soul-forged, and she had no reason to stay since Magister Carrarn had been killed. It had been his power that had allowed the two Generals to build up their number of soul-forged warriors.
Bludtyr sighed. She already knew
the decision she needed to make, but it didn’t make it more manageable. She didn’t like how many unknowns there were in this particular conflict.
“I guess we should contact Mors and update him on the situation.” Bludtyr finally said with a measure of regret.
Grievum chuckled at her tone. They were both tired of dealing with the man. The scout had been erratic as of late, and the generals assumed that he wasn’t having an enjoyable time on the northern border. It wasn’t likely the enemy giving him any problems, but more so the other Vallyr. The high lords with the best bloodlines and the most to gain with Mors’ defeat were all on the border. It was considered one of the most honorable positions in the Collective. The blue-blooded Vallyr held the border while their families played political games in the interior of the territory. Mors hadn’t been on the border in a while, and it was likely that the high lords had forgotten the touch of their Patriarch.
Bludtyr shared a long-suffering look with Grievum before steepling her fingertips on her temples and rubbing them gently. “Could you grab the guard outside and have him retrieve the communication amulet?”
“Sure,” Grievum grinned, still amused at the other general’s predicament. He was glad that Bludtyr had decided to take the sword and call Mors; he was just happy that he had dodged the thrust this time. Grabbing the guard as she had asked, didn’t prick his ego at all.
Sometime later, the communication amulet was retrieved for the two generals, and the ordinary soldiers who may have been able to overhear what was said had been dismissed. Guards roved the floor to make sure that no one would have the ability to eavesdrop on their important communication.
Bludtyr held the amulet in her hand and channeled her mana into the device. The charm felt like it had drawn all of the heat from the room. It felt like a clock of ice in her palm, and the air became chilled enough that both Vallyr could see their breaths. Bludtyr reflected that Mors must be far away for the pendant to draw so much of the ambient mana to maintain its connection.
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