A/N: So, there's going to be one more Fort Yang chapter after all.
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"Mama!"
Her mother turned around, her cloth apron swirling around her. Even though she was surprised, Irld still caught Danine as she took a flying leap off the leading wagon.
Danine laughed as her mother set her down with a spin.
"Danine! You're back!"
Danine nodded, burying her face into her mother's stomach. It had been months since she had last seen her mother. Her mother tried to lift her but failed.
"My, you're really grown up!" Irld exclaimed, "are you alright? Hungry?"
Danine nodded again, a bright smile on her face.
Ryulo watched as Arbor joined the family reunion, nodding at the little Fuka's father. He got a respectful nod back and a questioning look.
"Danine has been great," Ryulo said proudly, "Brave and honest. I am proud to have worked with her. "
He could see Danine almost exploding with pride, her tail wagging happily. Ryulo grinned at the girl, "also a little stubborn and prone to not listen to instructions. But it worked out for the best, she has the knack for knowing when instructions don't make sense. "
He laughed and rubbed her head as Danine scowled.
"Danine, have you been making trouble for Ryulo?" her mother asked.
Danine shook her head a bit too quickly. Her mother sighed and nodded to Ryulo, "and thank you very much for taking care of Danine. Give Cato my thanks as well, I can see my daughter has grown up. "
"Indeed, if she were ten years older, I'd like her to join the village council," Ryulo winked at Danine, who looked as if she was about to burst from all the praise now. Her mother just laughed. Her father hugged her and nuzzled her ears.
"What about Cato?" Irld asked.
Danine answered this time, with a giant smile, "Cato and Landar are now mates! Remember that alchemist that made our bowguns?"
"Not yet mates, they haven't married in the human customs," Ryulo corrected her, "but we're sure it's just a matter of time. "
Irld nodded, "then send him my best wishes. May the light of the sun shine for them. "
"I will convey that to him," Ryulo assured her.
With one young Fuka delivered, Ryulo was now left with the more unwelcome task of talking to the council. The fate of the small crowd of Fukas waiting on the carts behind him depended on their verdict.
Banage was already waiting for him. The old Fuka was looking healthier and more energetic. Although not energetic enough to catch Aleas when she tackled him exactly like Danine did her mother. Ryulo almost jumped out of the wagon after her, Banage might be looking healthy but he wasn't young and Aleas wasn't light like Danine.
"Aleas! Which old man are you trying to kill this time?" Banage laughed as he tottered under her weight.
Aleas laughed and swung off her grandfather, spinning around him in midair. "Just a certain grandfather who should be retired and enjoying his life by now. "
"This grandfather can still bite your head off if you're not careful," Banage smiled back.
"Ryulo might want to watch out," Aleas stuck out a tongue at him. Uh oh. Was she going to- "You're a great grandfather now," Aleas said, grinning at Ryulo.
Banage growled at Ryulo with fake sternness. "I see. So, a young upstart council member thinks he can steal your bed. You were right, I shall have to bite someone's head off after all. "
Ryulo shuddered. That last part wasn't in a joking tone. His discomfort must have shown.
"You haven't taken the ceremony of blood?" Banage asked flatly.
Even Aleas gulped at that one. "Um, grandfather, there wasn't time," she winced, "and... and the fighting made me rush a bit. Even if our Ems were good, there is still risk and-"
"You will perform the ceremony immediately after the council adjourns, understood?" Banage said. The tone of his voice made it clear that if they didn't cooperate, he might indeed grow fangs and bite Ryulo's head off.
Ryulo and Aleas nodded seriously.
Then Banage smiled and nodded a greeting at Ryulo. "So. I see you have returned. Anything else I ought to know about that wasn't in the letters?"
"Not really, beyond the fact that we really need to save enough money to buy a borehole from Cato once he's perfected it," Ryulo said.
"That will be discussed in the council. "
"What about Ems?" Aleas asked, "how many people have Tim and his mother taught?"
Banage smiled at his granddaughter and lifted her clear off the ground. Aleas squeaked in surprise. Ryulo could only gape at the aging Fuka lifting his granddaughter like he would a piyo. Magic danced underneath his hand.
"Just about everyone has learnt it," Banage said proudly, "in fact, one of the issues we will be discussing in the council is a formal school for teaching and refining the practice. With how bad the humans are at it, I figure we can be the ones to teach them. "
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Ka perched on top of the metal pole, keeping his balance with no more than the slightest twitch of his wings. He didn't even need to try using that new Em magic for this.
"Balance is nearly perfect," Cato noted from the ground below him.
Ka felt like snorting, Elkas had to have good balance or they couldn't fly, even his crippled wife, Mii, could do this trivially. But he couldn't treat a person he owed a life debt to like that.
"Alright, next is to beat your wings as if you're trying to gain height, but don't use magic or that lift power. Hold onto to pole and just use your wings," Cato instructed
Ka nodded and did as he said.
"We have magic signature," Cato continued, "can you suppress your Em some more?"
"I'm not using it," Ka said.
Cato raised an eyebrow, "we have a signal here. Weak but still there. "
"I don't need to use Em to do this, and I'm not using the lift. "
Cato muttered to himself and finally gestured that he was done. The girl next to him started up a close discussion, heads close and bent over the magical devices pointing at Ka. They were whispering like a bonded pair. That alchemist woman was widely considered crazy but if Ka was going to fly attack missions, he would take whatever he could and not mind the source. Better weapons to kill the enemy meant less of them to shoot at him.
He ran the magic down his arms and then back up into his wings. According to Cato, Ka learned Ems just as fast as the Fukas did, which was much faster than humans. But what was new was that Ka could put Ems into both wings at once, instead of focusing the Em into a single spot or spreading it all over his body indiscriminately.
"All right, one more test. I want you to generate lift in your wings," Cato said, "you said once that with a very low power, you can do it indefinitely. Can you do that? I want to see how much power that is. "
Ka complied wordlessly, feeling his wings grow lighter on his back. Not anywhere close to flying level but enough to make walking marginally easier. This much was something all Elkas could do once they were trained to fly. Now that Ka had been taught, he could tell that their lifting power was just like an Em, only it was especially easy to learn and control of it was as easy as lifting a finger.
In fact, Ka was confident that with this training and understanding, he could pull off feats that would easily qualify himself as a scout or hunter despite his poor experience. The movement Ems were so easy now that Ka couldn't imagine flying without them. For an actual scout who had been trained to integrate Ems into their normal flying skill? Maybe the legends of the ancient Elka heroes being able to perform impossible flying feats was not so impossible.
"I'm saying that the only possible explanation is that they have a reserve pool of power that is huge," Landar was saying, "that level of power is impossible for even Iris summoners to keep up all day. "
"A reserve pool doesn't let them do it all day, it will still run dry eventually," Cato said. They looked up at Ka. "Hey there, how long can you actually keep that up for? "
Ka shrugged at Cato's question, "I have not tested my limits but in the migration with the Fukas, Mii kept her wings light as long as she was awake. At least from sun up to sun down. "
"A reserve pool that big will let them cast Ritual Summons, you think?" Cato asked Landar. Who just shrugged. Cato smiled, "only one way to find out. "
Landar sighed and gestured at the silent guard standing behind them. The landbound had their own two factions like the Elkas and Ka was now well versed enough to tell Iris and Inath people apart. The Iris guard took out a small green stone and Landar presented it to Ka.
"What do I do with this?" he asked.
"Stop using your magic, if you need to recover, do so. Then we want you to put all your magic into the stone. Just push it in until you don't have any more power, as fast as possible," Landar explained, "we're trying to measure the amount of magic your lifeforce stores. "
Ka nodded and sat down on the pole to recover his energy. A minute later, he got their attention and held up the stone. Push magic into it? Landar had previously tried to teach him how to use magic as if pushing an Em out of his body but the effects were unstable. Apparently magic was not as easy as Ems were.
However, the small green stone resting on his finger absorbed the magic easily. Ka opened himself, cramming the power down his hand as if he was in a vertical climb. Like attempting the feat of Yi, the Elka hero who was said to be so strong in his lift that he could fly even after the darkness took a wing from him.
The stone flared in his hands, a ball of light popping out of it and shining like the sun. Ka squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on his magic. A few moments later, he was dry. He opened his eyes again and saw that the ball was gone.
"That's it?" Landar exclaimed. Even Cato looked surprised.
But why would Ka lie about this? He nodded at them.
"That's not even enough for Shieldwall," Landar said to Cato. Who shrugged back.
Ka knew that they were surprised as his weakness in magic but wasn't that to be expected? Ka wasn't a mage like the Inaths were, in fact he was surprised that he managed to achieve this level of power. From what he knew, that ball of light was already quite powerful by Inath standards.
"Wait a minute," Cato interrupted their discussion and looked up at Ka, "hey, you can't fly without magic, right? By your judgment, how long would it take for you to recover enough to fly across the Minmay lake?"
Ka thought for a while. Recovering his lift was reasonably fast but he was almost completely drained. "An hour?" he said. Best to be slightly conservative.
"And for you to recover your full range?" Cato continued asking.
"A few hours. The lake is quite large, maybe a quarter," Ka said, "to be safe, I'd have to avoid flying for the rest of this morning. "
Cato shot a significant look at Landar, who was looking even more surprised now. In fact, all the humans around him were looking at him in shock.
"Very fast recovery," Cato said, "that's considerably faster than humans, yes?"
Landar nodded, "maybe five times faster. He could use his entire power multiple times a day. We barely recover our full power in one day. "
They looked at each other then back up at Ka.
"And they can fly. Spells might be hard but providing power isn't that difficult. I'm not the only one thinking about spellforming wands now, am I?" Cato asked.
Landar nodded, with a grin on her face.
Ka sighed. A better weapon means less enemies, he reminded himself.
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Ka winged down under the incoming blast from the creature's mouth. The cursed of the sky twisted to keep behind him. A streak of a firebolt zoomed past, they dodged out of the way.
So much for better weapons! Ka dived steeper, trying to charge the weapon in his hands. The tube shaped device accepted the magic when he put it out like he had been trained. The charge building inside the hollow tube was protected from the twisting and turning of his attempts to shake the nightcryers. Ka frantically dodged another salvo of magic from the three creatures behind him, pressing the trigger of the device as he ascended sharply and pivoted to face them in a move that would have made any Hunter proud.
The fat tube as wide as his fist popped open, the flap at the firing end swinging up to expose the insides. Then the tube discharged its portion of the power to accelerate the firebolt inside.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The firebolt flew back at the nightcryers, who broke and swerved, too late. The firebolt clipped the lead monster on the tail, flashing into a puff of flame and causing it to screech in pain. The monster jerked backwards, just in time to receive another hit from Tiki swooping in from the sun. Tiki had loaded force, confident of a solid hit, and the forcebolt tore into the monster's wings, smashing bone and ripping the tissue. The nightcryer spiraled down, screeching all the way.
Ka tucked in his wings and dived to gain some speed. The last monster blasted its cry at Tiki, who slid sideways through the air in a logic defying maneuver, impossible without significant usage of Em. The nightcryer turned and ran and they swooped to chase its tail.
A couple of shots from their spell launchers and it also went down in flames.
"Where have these weapons been and why haven't we had them before?" Tiki crowed, waving victoriously at the trio below them.
"One of the products of working with the humans," Ka said as he fell into position behind Tiki's windwake.
Tiki waved a wingtip, "you don't have to convince me, I'm not one of those old folks back at home. I think we ought to work with the humans, from what I learnt fighting monsters nets lots of money. And despite what they say, money buys lots of really nice stuff. "
He glanced back at Ka worriedly, "Don't tell my parents I said that. "
Ka laughed but it was swept away by the wind as he followed Tiki's dive to the other group. "Young wings are always swift and stupid. Your parents will forgive you. They won't forgive me for corrupting you with landbound ideas though. "
"I shall be sure not to mention it," Tiki bobbed.
The other three hunters fell into formation behind Tiki as he led them back through the mountaintops.
"It would be good not to get too sure of your own skill," Ka said as they flew on silently, "hunting the cursed is never safe, even if we have much better weapons than arrows. I know dodging the cries have gotten much easier with our Ems and we even stand a chance of surviving but all it takes-"
"is one hit, yes I know," Tiki said. The young Scout sighed and glanced back at Ka in exasperation. "I am sure I have not been reminded more times than I have feathers. "
Ka sighed. "These new weapons cut into our lift capacity every time we fire them, it would easy to misjudge and attack so often you exhaust your lift. I am just worried that with the Ems enhancing your skill and this magic, nightcryers will seem so easy that you become tempted to think hunting them is routine. That was how Clan One was destroyed by the humans. "
"You really have to tell that story to me some time," Tiki said, "for now-"
Their conversation was cut off as Tiki swerved sharply downwards, skimming so close to the mountainside that he could almost reach down with a wing and brush the rock. This close, the wind would be brutal.
"What happened?" Ka asked.
Tiki wordlessly gestured upwards. Ka twisted his head to look and caught a sight he wouldn't forget easily.
The mountaintop was haloed in a strange otherworldly light. It wasn't like the light of the sun catching on the snow. The light came from nowhere, a soft glow that seemed to have no source. Wrapped around the tips of the white mountain peak above them, the light bathed the harsh snow up there with a gentle aura that defied logic.
"What is that?" Ka asked quietly. He had never seen such a thing, but he had heard of it from the further ranging Scouts of Clan One.
"Aura Light, is what we and the humans call it," Tiki explained, "no idea what it is but they say it leads to other worlds. That those who fly into the light vanish and never reappear. I think that's just something the old folks say to scare us children though. "
"I notice we're still avoiding it. Even though it's all the way up there. "
"It may be an old tale but I'm not stupid enough to take chances," Tiki shook his head, "if you see the mountain disappear, you should speak up. "
Ka snorted and shook his head to himself. Tiki might claim to not be cocky and overly sure of his own skill but he was still new to his wings and far too good in the air to learn true humility. He looked at the light again and shivered under his feathers. It glowed back at him, the glow caressing the snowcaps like a blanket around the mountain. It looked harmless but like Tiki, Ka wasn't going to take chances.
He turned his attention to something more mundane as silence fell around them again. "Also, Tiki, I will not comment on you wanting to fly a different wind from your parents, but my Ri is still a cute and sweet child. If I catch you claiming her feathers, I will break your wings myself, Scout or not Scout. "
Tiki's wingmates glared at Ka but he shrugged it off. They didn't have a daughter too charmed by a certain Scout to talk about anything other than his wings.
"Your daughter's feathers are not in danger from me. For one thing, she is too young. For another, you should be more worried for my feathers," Tiki said dryly, "you should also think about dealing with her heartbreak. Your threats are meaningless, I'd be far too worried about my parents. There wouldn't be a wing left for you to break. "
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They were once again flying together, Ka and Tiki. The Clan Two elders didn't really approve but Tiki seemed to like Ka. Or maybe he just liked Ri, Ka wasn't sure he could trust the boy's denials. And while Ka would never match Tiki in the sky, the new Em learning had pushed everyone's flying skill upwards so much that even his daughter could probably hunt a paka.
Today though, was rather different than the usual. Clan Two's hunters, lead by Tiki, were on the attack.
The Yang coiled out below them, a blue line shooting between the rocky sides of the valley. The rocks and thin grass at the bottom pounded flat by thousands and thousands of dead feet.
Further downstream, the valley was covered by a black swarm that crawled over the land and alternately paddled and waded through the river. There were so many zombies that Ka couldn't see the ground below them. From one wall to the other, it was packed with moving figures, the black mist swirling around them like a veil of death.
There were more zombies here than had attacked the Wendy's Fort in the last big attack, when the Fuka village had emigrated there. More zombies than had ever attacked Fort Yang, if Ka had recalled the humans' words correctly. The fort commander had all but begged the Elkas for help ever since the horde had been discovered in the open northern sands, and then disappeared from the fort.
Ka had had to correct his initial assumption of classic landbound honourless behaviour when what must have been every sword and wand in the Central Territory seemed to flow into the fort. Cato's own clan leader, Minmay, had got the Elkas to fly in half his spell cannons and sent a three hundred person division in a grueling two week forced march to double his fighters there.
After marching, the Minmay fighters had immediately started to dig trenches and mines all over the ground in the valley. After they handed out much of the new weapons they had brought for drill, the rest of the fighters started digging everywhere as well. Ka didn't understand what they were building there, not being landbound, but he knew they thought it would help protect themselves. How hiding in holes was supposed to do that was something Cato had never managed to explain to Ka's satisfaction.
Today, Tiki and the Elkas were going to attack the zombies first. To understand how many of them were the light shooting types and to get an idea of what new trick the zombies had. Cato said that the zombies gaining new tricks might depend on how many zombies were in the army and this army was the biggest yet.
With a gesture, Tiki dived down with the rest of the flight on his wingtips. He held out two wooden rods as long as his arm and the light around them began to distort. The two spellforming wands generated a stream of light distorting magic... air. Something. That prevented the light shooting zombies from killing them. It only blinded you if the beam hit your head, which was small comfort in this dangerous environment.
They reached the bottom of their dive just outside the black mist without encountering any of the light beams and the entire flight apart from Tiki dropped their loads. They had been given a bunch of sealed clay pots, supposedly a new experimental weapon of Cato's, and told never to open the pots. Given what the alchemist girl's plot of land looked like, Ka made a very convincing case to certain curious fingers that ignoring the advice was liable to leave the Clan as nothing more than a black stain on the mountainside.
The pots landed in the crowd just as the Elkas were swooping out of their dive and burst open with enough force from their dive to scatter the contents all over the hapless zombies below.
The substance inside instantly burst into flame, a white smoky fire that resisted all attempts by the black mist surrounding the zombies to put it out. Then oil inside caught and the area hit disappeared in a sea of fire. The zombies supposedly had a defence against fire but despite the flames seeming to die, it kept flaring up, individual spots bursting up again once the concentration of black mist moved on. Ka grinned, for once he was glad of the woman's deviousness. With a substance that just kept re-igniting, the black mist would put it out and the zombies would fill the area again before being set alight once more. The suppression of the mist was doing more damage than simply ignoring the fire and going around it.
What was it that Cato had called the substance? White phosphorus. Something about making matches. Too bad that was the only load they had, Cato had made those pots in the university one at a time. Ka would have to see if Clan Two couldn't make more of it.
"Did you see?" Tiki said as they pulled away without getting shot at.
"See what?"
"The zombies," Tiki pointed down, "they're not all human. "
Ka shrugged, "the humans say that the light shooting ones are made of rock. "
"No, I think I saw a paka down there. Or it might have been an oddly shaped Reki, but definitely not human. It had four legs. I couldn't make out the rest from the crowd but there's probably more than one of those. "
"It would explain why there's so many this time, if they've been making all the animals across the mountain into zombies," Ka mused. That was not a good development. Animals outnumbered people many many times. If every animal on the other side of the mountain range was a zombie now, this horde might not be the last. Still, if turning animals into zombies was the new trick, all it meant was more numbers and the humans clearly hoped that some of the new weapons would help them against overwhelming odds.
As they distanced themselves, sure that the zombies weren't about to shoot them anymore, Tiki put away the wands and looked down again. They were flying towards the Fort now, going over where the smaller front army of the zombies were already meeting the humans.
Ka caught his paling face and looked down himself. Individual zombies were indistinguishable from the black mass but the horde had stopped moving.
He didn't think that was due to the attack they just performed. The fire was powerful but one flight simply couldn't put a dent in a horde than choked the valley black. All of Clan Two could have as many bombs as they wanted and the numbers wouldn't change at all in a week of bombing. Besides, they had bombed the main army, not this ten thousand or so in front.
The much smaller front part of the horde had come within sight of the line of trenches the humans had dug out, now looking like a thin flimsy line drawn in the valley floor. The zombies had stopped just before the point where the lake in front of the fort compressed the land on either side to a thin strip. A steep rock wall on one side and a lake on the other, a perfect defensive chokepoint as the commander of the fort explained.
Ka gulped as he realized the zombies weren't going to charge through the corridors to be slaughtered.
Then he got another shock as the front of the zombies' milling line flared with light. Tiki hurriedly deployed the mist again but it wasn't aimed at them. The salvoes of light stabbed out at the humans, hammering away at their holes.
The zombies were lining up for a ranged battle.