The next day, four battalions left at dawn. The overnight orders had us mobilized in a hurry. The announcement was written in big, bold script, and informed Fletcher Hall of our required presence for a special military operation. I think we were relieved to know finally what our next step forward was.

Hyperion himself had taken charge of the force; we marched by his command. Four battalions were a quarter of the force that Lobsterhead could bring to bear, approximately three and a half thousand legionnaires. Most of the enlisted needed to stay behind to garrison the fort. We’d kept a brutal pace for the first ten hours, pushing many to the point of exhaustion, and then Hyperion called for us to set up camp. The Legion co-opted an overgrown set of pastures that belonged to a small village by the name of Walcatt. It was another day’s march from our eventual destination for supply, Champtown.

Walcatt was unremarkable. It had a few dozen buildings, a large temple that serviced a handful of local settlements, and an inn. The force’s commanding officers stayed at the inn, whilst the grunts like me built a tent-city in the fields. Each legionnaire was equipped with a portable tent and bedroll. They’d been graciously provided by Lobsterhead’s quartermasters. It took an hour to clear away enough brush, but eventually I constructed sleeping arrangements for the evening.

It was an uncomfortable situation. The bed-roll was too small for someone of my size; the tent did a poor job of protecting us from the elements. I slept fitfully, so I was already half-delirious when something happened in the dead of night.

The screech of a bird startled me awake.

It was loud enough that my tent shook. It was a piercing wail, and the pitch unnerved me enough that an involuntary chill ran down my spine. That’s annoying.

It continued to wail in irregular intervals. I felt my heartbeat spike. Its call sounded off. The noise was too guttural and deep to be any of the songbirds I knew. I’d grown up a handful of days away, and it didn’t sound like any of the birds of my youth.

It annoyed me I had to be the one to wake up to address the racket. Couldn’t someone just throw a rock at it? I thought. I can’t be the only one who’s awake by now. Damn bird is screaming bloody murder.

I was shoving on my boots when a dozen more screeches joined the first. My sleep-addled wits returned to me enough that I recognized the truth: something was wrong.

I popped open the lock to a travel-case sat at the foot of my bed. My new weapon waited inside, hungry for its first taste of blood after a long period of disuse. I shoved it on in a fluid motion and tightened the strap to secure it in place.

The weight of the gauntlet on my hand reassured me. Its golden form might’ve looked bulky, but it felt like it’d been tailored to me. It was a perfect match. The strength of my knuckle was without doubt, and I knew with it I’d be a force to be reckoned with. [The Fist That Parts the Sea] was already powerful enough to crack a horror’s skull even without a weapon to amplify its force.

I’d decided to call the gauntlet Nine until a better name emerged for it. Baldavin, the man who’d gifted me the weapon, had insisted that such names only came from great deeds. I’d yet to perform any great deeds, but maybe tonight could be the start. The other contents of the conversation I'd had with him the evening before still disturbed me. The authority attribute existed on a level beyond my reach, and it would stay that way. I wanted no part in it.

I steeled my resolve, and pulled back the canvas door of my tent and stared out into the night.

A hellish symphony echoed through the vicinity. The tent had muffled the noise, and the screeches of a flock big enough to black out the night’s sky hit me. Overhead, they circled in the sky, their dark silhouettes illuminated only by the light of the stars and moon. If they weren’t so loud, they could’ve been mistaken for a cloud.

To my surprise, I was one of the last ones to wake. I must’ve slept through more than I thought. Large groups of soldiers made their way through camp, all in various states of dress and armament.

“What’s going on?” I asked a put-together looking passerby wearing messenger garb. “That ring of birds is gigantic! Is everything alright?”

He jumped in fright when I spoke to him and then calmed down. “You’ve got some spooky eyes, friend. Someone’s upset a horde something fierce. They’re going to dive at the camp real soon, despite us not having done anything to provoke them.”

I wasn’t sure what his comment meant. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard something about my eyes recently.

“Do you think someone sent ‘em after us?”

“I’m not paid well enough to think,” he said with a shrug. “It could be the weather, or it could be the war. Who knows why a horror does what a horror does?”

“That’s fair,” I said. “Stay safe.”

“And you.”

Whilst that was a strange attitude to have toward a matter of life and death, there was a ring of truth to his words. No one could predict the habits of a Horror, least of all me. An accurate prediction didn’t matter if I could end them.

The term he’d used, a horde, referred to a large group of lesser horrors that traveled in packs. They weren’t a common sight in the Empire because the native wildlife in our region was mostly solitary. Every few years, a horde would migrate into the Empire. They brought havoc, terror, and a fair amount of damage to under-defended settlements.

If this was a horde, then it’d be the 3rd horror attack that I’d heard about in as many days. A horde outbreak was a bad sign. I was concerned. As far as I knew, this behavior was unusual. It hinted at something making them mad across the Empire. What sort of thing makes a corrupted monster angry?

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

I tried to locate the rest of Fletcher Hall, but quickly found that in the chaos of a night camp readying for battle, finding a specific group was impossible. People shouted to organize men for battle. Others rapidly took apart tents. A general feeling of confusion took hold as more people woke up and joined the fray. It was chaos.

I found a group of legionnaires that looked similarly lost and waited with them. We didn’t wait for long, because soon the attack started. It began with diving, just as the legionnaire I’d asked said it would.

It’s just a bird, I thought. There’s only so much damage they can do. Sure, there’s a lot of them. They’re just more of a nuisance. What’re they going to do? Take our rations and peck at our armor?

“Incoming!” a nearby voice yelled. “One of them is coming down! Don’t let it take you!”

Wait, I thought. Take me? How would it take me?

The warning came late; a seagull the size of a man swooped into the camp. I stepped back on reflex.

The horror descended with a gust of wind; the force of its wings pushed back a handful of unfortunate souls near where it landed. Its feathers were white but stained an ugly gray, slick with both dirt and oil. Ending a pair of scarred yellow feet were talons that looked like sickles. Instead of a harvest of wheat, however, they’d be reaping men. A hooked beak the color of bone sat at the center of its face; its edge serrated like a saw.

“It’s grounded!” Someone else shouted. “Strike it!”

A group of legionnaires collapsed onto the oversized bird, me among them. It stretched out its wingspan to its maximum and acted like it was going to take off. Too slow, birdie. Shouldn’t have come down here. We were upon it before it could leave the ground.

I used [Empower] and sent a gauntleted fist into its wing, which made an ugly tearing sound as feathers flew off into the air. Three others struck at it with swords. Two of them succeeded, causing damage to the other wing and left leg, respectively. But the third wasn’t so lucky. He mistimed his lunge and missed, which exposed him to retribution from the horror.

I wanted to help, but his fate was sealed.

The bird pecked him, and the serrated beak punched a hole through his chest. His ribs collapsed around the sudden intrusion and his eyes bulged. He dropped his blade to the ground. A few seconds, the man fell still as the last of the life left him. Blood poured like a waterfall from a hole in his chest.

Everyone seemed taken aback at watching a legionnaire die so suddenly. There was a pause in our attacks, during which the horror struggled to get the corpse dislodged from its beak. It’d caught him, but it’d done too good of a job at it. It was stuck.

“It can’t hit us back,” I announced. “Avenge him!”

A reinvigorated wave of legionnaires assaulted the bird. I used [Empower] to tear another chunk out of its wing, which provoked a loud skree-ing sound from it. It made me wince. Cries in response echoed out from the additional horrors still within the clouds, and I mentally prepared myself for more to arrive. Stupid bird had to bring friends.

Meanwhile, the other legionnaires covered the horror like ants would a scrap. The first man’s sacrifice was not in vain. No other soldier was injured whilst they hacked the beast to pieces. When they finished, they left behind a bloody, broken pulp of bone and feather.

I was too busy scanning the sky to appreciate the savagery of how they’d dispatched it. Sure enough, two more of the birds had separated from the horde and were coming to investigate their companion’s demise.

“Are they just going to keep coming?” I asked. If one became two, and two became four, then soon we’d be overrun.

One soldier volunteered an answer. “Not if Master Hyperion has anything to say about it! I’m sure as soon as he hears a word of this, he’ll fry ‘em out of the sky!”

“So, when’s Hyperion coming?”

“If someone’s already gotten word to him, then he could be here any moment!”

I knew he was trying to be hopeful, but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my chances of survival up to an ‘if.’ I prayed he was right about Hyperion coming soon, because there wasn’t a chance the rest of camp wasn’t attacked.

The first horror of the pair grounded itself by using a person to arrest its momentum. It pounced on a soldier from above and then skidded to a stop with them lodged prone under its talons. It made a shrill screech, and legionnaires desperate to save their comrade set upon it.

The second horror went after me. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my size or the threat I represented, but for whatever reason, it’d decided I was on the menu. It made a dramatic plummet downwards; then, it tried to pull off the same trick its friend had just used to force me prone.

I was significantly larger than the person pinned down. The stupid bird hadn’t realized the difference.

It sunk its sickle-like claws into my shoulder, tearing deep gouges into my flesh, but it could not bring me to the ground. With both hands, I forcibly wrenched off the leg that was perched on me. Whilst still holding the horror, I swung my arms downward in a motion not unlike chopping wood. It slammed into the ground with a pained skree.

“Bastard,” I cursed as I reared back my fist. “That’s the second time this week!”

It lay on its back, cawing with anger. Its lethal beak struck at me twice, but I was quick to sidestep both times. I used [Empower] on the fist with Nine, and then slammed the gauntlet into its face. It was disfigured but still alive, and it looked angry enough to try to stay that way.

“Can I get a little help?” I said as dodged a beak and readied my fist for another blow. “He’s a little tougher than he looks!”

“On it!” someone said.

I didn’t want to use [The Fist That Parts the Sea] in such a public setting. I’d seen the consequences of that once already, and I’d learned my lesson. Plus, I was confident that this bird wasn’t going to kill me.

I used [Empower] to punch it again and sent another flurry of feathers into the air. Camp would look like someone’d murdered a pillow by the time this fight was done. The bird screeched at me. The proximity to the noise made my teeth ache.

Eventually, a legionnaire holding an axe got involved. He got to work on ending the horror whilst I boxed with its face, fist versus beak. After that, we made quick work of the thing.

The legionnaire who’d been pinned to the ground had survived, if barely. Three-pronged claw marks went down either side of his torso. As I watched some try to staunch the bleeding torn rag, he cried noiseless tears.

Lesser Adversaries defeated. Increased density of Chrysalis nanites detected in proximity. Beginning absorption..

..Absorption complete. Requirement for progression met. Dexterity: IV -> V

Seriously, I thought. That’s practically nothing compared to what it was before. I guess the path to power gets steeper.

Overhead, the sky erupted in an explosion of red light. Not a moment too soon, either, because the bulk of the horde had started their descent. The world became the color of blood, and it banished the darkness of night. Cheers rang out from around the camp.

Hyperion had arrived.