V8: Chapter 7

…

Interlude: Khanrow

…

In block formation, the men marched towards the Citadel to the cheering of crowds and flying banners. Overhead flights of flying horses soared over the whole city in v-formations, much like ducks. Shops were bought out for the day and offered their wares to anyone who could stand the long queues. Each unit held their unit standard proudly at the front, each one gleaming in half-plate over fatigues and uniforms, and each unit showcased themselves to the best of their ability. They held pride in themselves, each single one, as they were victors loved by their people.

And, of course, Jack made use of it.

The Conquerors, Children of the Elm, and mages marched in their formations between blocks of Descendant Infantry.

The Conquerors were well-liked. They traded with us and they lost their Citadel due to the machinations of Demons. At most, some bemoaned they took on ranks in the army that could’ve gone to their own people. Their inclusion into our ranks and our society was an easy one, especially as they kept to themselves and their honor extended to all peoples.

The Children of the Elm’s inclusion as reconnaissance in force had been met with more distaste. Even with those allowed in thoroughly vetted, and many of them working for years now alongside our people, distrust and prejudice remained. However, those that we took in were trained well. They marched with honor and pride in their accomplishments, and knew to avoid conflict, as we turned their long-lived nature towards waiting for the day that they would be fully accepted. That was decades in the future, if not centuries, but they saw that as quick nonetheless.

Users of magic outside Academy lands suffered from misinformation campaigns. The Academy made it so that any mages born outside would be given up by their people freely. They told all that magic was dangerous and spontaneous, as if someone could turn into a bomb overnight by sheer chance. They fomented fear, enough fear so that any mage born would be pushed out towards the Academy, and the Academy would welcome them with open arms. Many of those who lived in our lands were gathered from territories that fell victim to those campaigns, and the distrust and fear remained for those who could use magic.

However, Jack interspersed them between the spearmen, the shining flying cavalry trotting along, and the riflemen. Everyone cheered for everyone, as it was easier, and in doing so they all crossed the threshold towards beginning to accept the others. They would associate that cheering moment with free drink and free food, as well as other celebrations that take place the rest of the day, and go to sleep with memories of a great victory won against a horrible foe.

“It’s magnificent, isn’t it, grandfather? Once you see the truth of it, you simply cannot look away.” Morgan entered my hidden alcove without announcing herself. I cast my gaze towards her and she gave a smile and friendly wave. “I told Gilbert to go into the Merchant’s lands and get a better look at things over there. Don’t worry, I’ve sent some of the new aspirants with him. The ones I don’t need to look after.”

I gave her a nod and gestured for her to take the chair I prepared for my chief spy and doppelganger. She readily accepted and smiled at the procession.

I’ve only seen her smile since she’s arrived here in this land.

My daughter’s daughter had been a quiet young woman in the library or on the training grounds taking in everything and measuring everyone… save for her family.

Hm.

No.

Not even we were spared.

She was raised well.

“I was fortunate to find the child when I attacked the caravan. Fortunate even more that it was the day he freed himself from slavery. For the longest time, I kept watch over him thinking him some sort of plant by my hidden rivals… but, instead, he was simply a true genius born to this world.”

“Probably a bit like Ilych and has some faint connections to the Ancients, though he’s much more in control. Perhaps it's what she’s intended to have, but the stores of knowledge are inaccessible to her and she’s limited to personal prediction?” Morgan theorized and took hold of a bowl of fruit and observed it all with a faint smile. Sturdy crops from the seed vault found by Riegert produced hardy, strong fruits even when accelerated with magic. A single tree yielded a bushel a week of red, sweet apples that kept for three months, if properly stored in a relatively cool environment. “Or, perhaps, they’re two halves of one another. One is for combat and warfare while the other is for stewardship and the building of nations.”

“It would be wise to keep the two apart, otherwise there’d be too many people with far too much power. The Ancients do enjoy keeping balance.” I mused, and Morgan hummed, while taking bites of the apple. As always, she was dogged and determined. Within a few bites, she was at the core and wiping the juices from her lips and face. My daughter would say she’s lacking in grace when she let down her guard. I believed Morgan knew that being messy and imperfect showcased a weakness that allowed others to lower their guard around her. “At least, those who did not experiment on themselves and turned into the creatures we now face across the world. You’ve read Riegert’s reports and the copies of the findings of the Forgers?”

“Of course, I had nothing else to do whilst traveling with the army, besides getting the measure of the aspirants, scoping out the officer corps for corruption, and playing with Rita and Ilych. Plenty of time to read the reports.” She crossed a leg over to rest on a knee and leaned into her chair’s armrest. How much of it was a ploy to make me trust her more? How much of it was true? I chuckled. No one could’ve asked for a better student than Morgan. If they were the finest teacher, of course. “The Sahuagin are the most interesting. The parasite that they use to control minds is immensely intriguing, though their warforms are fine replacements for Guardians. We should investigate both, while the Forgers run around like elephants.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“The Forgers have recently noted sightings of a higher class of the creature protected by far larger war forms.” I took the envelope with the information from my lapel and handed it to my granddaughter. She raised an eyebrow and took it gingerly. Before us the procession came to a crescendo. Jack was on a floating stage waving to the crowd. Rigert, Ilych, and Rita were at the forefront with new medals on their lapels along with other soldiers who proved their worth in battle. “It exhibited the ability to control weaker-willed minds at range, and its body-guards are snail-like creatures that inhabit large suits of shell-like metal and wield devastating weaponry. It took a whole squadron of heavy Forger infantry with Mage support to kill five.”

“…Both creatures sound too troublesome to keep alive. Chemical would probably work on a colony of organisms inhabiting a single shell. The elder creature should just be killed. The Iterants are unaffected?”

“They are.”

“We should intervene and fetch corpses of those creatures for study, then. I’ll ask for our sake. Our king will probably have something better in mind.” Morgan stretched and grunted with contentment before nodding to herself. She was relaxing. I was aware of the knife she within tenths of seconds in her reach, and so was she. Good. Her guard ready to be raised up, as it should always be. “What did you find, then, grandfather? Riegert found the Stymphalian Harpies, so that leaves only one foe left, correct?”

I took a moment to consider my next words, and she took note immediately.

“That terrible?”

“I thought myself prepared, but it was more than I imagined. Mortals are slaves to the Sahuagin, sacrifices for the Demons, and prey to Stymphalians… but the Ascendant see us as resources. Materials to shape and turn into what they wish.” I closed my eyes and I saw it. The fields of pulsating metal-flesh that stretched from horizon to horizon. Metal veins flowed like roots across the ground filled with black ichor. Mortals kept in pits where food and water, heaved from buckets by lumbering machines with oversized legs, backwards arms with claws, and pure red eyes all over their forms. We looked upon it from afar, swaddled in glamours and illusions by our mages, and beheld true horror. “Our flesh and forms are nothing but organic materials for them to use to control their technology and magics.”

We brought an Iterants along for their ability to sketch, though Jack had warned us to be mindful of how many images we should have them capture. I had thought him jesting. How could the steel minds and hearts of the Iterants be swayed? Ayah looked upon the brutal calculus required to win the coming battle, of how many needed to be born, and how many needed to be educated outside the reach of their own parents and accepted it without an ounce of remorse. Then, I looked upon the works of the Ascendants and bid the Iterants under my commands to only commit only to memory what I ask of them.

Even then, they still asked permission to forget all that they have seen on the journey.

The Iterants we brought along died the moment we returned, and their faces were filled with gratitude when I gave permission.

“Here.” The sketches had been carved carefully onto slates prepared by the Alchemists guild. The slates could only be used by the Iterants, with their ability to turn the ends on of their fingers into dexterous scalpels. Used like chipping tools, the Iterants under my command engraved the horrors of what we saw onto the slates, turning them into molds. Molds that can be used to create printing plate blocks, and present to the rest of the continent what we had to unite against. “This is their average warform.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow at the creature.

“The Ancients cursed them quite heavily.” Morgan observed, and I grunted. The Ascendants were once biomechanical beings of towering stature and beauty. From what little I could pry from Jack, as he pretended to know things through tomes that didn’t exist, they believed themselves the next step of life. Their minds crystalline, bodies composed of forged flesh and metal, and souls housed in some great work like the source of all magics. They struck first to devastating effect, but the Ancients persevered and crippled them. “The true Ascendants are in the central chassis, are they not? That armored coffin between those gigantic legs and arms. A child can barely fit in there.”

I nodded and took out the last and riskiest of the sketches we took.

Morgan’s eyes widened.

“Poor bastards.” Pity filled her voice, and I would’ve nodded, if not for what I had seen them do. “In their place, I would’ve ended it already.”

The Ancients put foul poxes upon their whole lineage, corrupted their metallic limbs to always rot, and bound them to the material realm. I saw statues in their city of what they once were. Towering humanoid figures, both beautiful and terrible to behold, but now we both looked upon a picture of one being extracted for care by the decrepit thralls they kept.

The Ascendant was like a living tumor, barely wrapped up by skin, with one misshapen eye, half-fused mouth, slits for a nose and grotesque protrusions for ears. It had two limbs, barely able to grasp or feed itself, and it wallowed in its own excretions as soon as it left its housing within the greater shell composed of magic and technology that they maintained. However, in its singular eye was one emotion: hate. After its body was stood upright and it was placed back in its chassis, it killed the thralls that it commanded to aid it.

“They haven’t ended it. Their lands are filled with excavation sites, mines, and production. They take mortals and use them as parts and pieces for their machines, forge metal into pieces that they need, and they have been researching feverishly all this time to improve their bodies.” The Ascendant were going to be our fiercest foes, even against the others that held the rest of the world. “They have fast-firing cannons, magical apparatuses that can disintegrate stone, and each one is a self-contained war machine. Barring some form of damage, they never need to leave their bodies.”

Without a doubt, they were superior foes, each one a powerful, magical knight with great speed and fast-firing projectiles. The various chemical weapons that we had and perhaps even our incendiary weapons, would not function well against their defenses. They can outrun and outrange our formations, ravage our lands like packs of wolves with heavy firepower, and retreat before we can catch them.

Morgan, however, already grasped their possible weakness.

“They’re a problem if we let them get past the mountain range.” She analyzed the threat, considered where they were, and nodded as she realized what lay in the path of the Ascendant. Mountain ranges filled with fortresses, which were to soon be even more heavily reinforced and armed in the coming years. “Our guns might be slower, but with enough of them and with kill boxes, we can stop anything short of an invasion of thousands… and I doubt they can muster that much. If they’re like that, their rate of reproduction will be barely above replacement.”

A scowl formed on her lips, though, as she finished dissecting the new foe.

“They won’t accept this as a reason to unite. If everyone here worked together, if we had every Citadel, then none of this will be a problem.” A scowl stretched across her face and she shook her head with a huff. She inherited my temper, or at least pretended to. Whatever was the case, I knew her frustration with the other Citadel-holders was real. “Grandfather, another expedition out into those lands isn’t what we need. The resources of another expedition are better spent bringing low the confederation that’s sprouted on half the continent.”

I had to chuckle.

Even my perfect granddaughter can be caught off guard, then.

“Don’t worry. We planted the seeds years ago when we realized the Wardens could never be brought into the fold.” Morgan turned to me so rapidly that her glasses went astray and her mouth opened while her eyes widened. She must’ve known that we had plans, but I was sure that Jack only entrusted myself and Gilbert with the whole of it. “In a few seasons, High Justiciar Khalai will die, and a religious schism will split the Wardens in half. We will take everything in the madness that follows.”

Ah.

I can ask my Iterant bodyguard to sketch how she looked right now, can’t I?