Chapter Seventy Six
Joe struggled to keep his face neutral, the anger burning within as he remembered the line of guards at the foot of the wall with the poor slaves with daggers. He could only hold it in, attempting to give the city of Coushar and its leadership the benefit of the doubt. He looked out upon the battlefield without much concern, his tactics for enraging the monsters and causing infighting still working quite well. He glanced away from the sea of creatures and looked back to the others, seeing all of them crouching low and close to the stairs. He frowned, then glanced up and down the line and found all the people supporting the front line also crouching in the back behind the stairs leading to the upper wall.
He stood and went back to overlook the battlefield and noticed that the waiting soldiers and slaves at the base of the wall were still safe, the monsters still fighting amongst themselves. Joe watched for a few moments before returning to his seat. He remained restless and finally walked back to stand beside the other five before sitting down next to them. The other five seemed to catch on to his restlessness rather quickly and silenced themselves, seeming to note the seriousness of Joe’s current emotion. Joe remained silent for several more moments, the other’s maintaining their silence as well.
“Who are the people at the bottom of the wall?” Joe asked quietly, but with an intensity that seemed to strike the others, turning them ever more to attention.
Gwenvair took a deep breath, responding cautiously, “They are the city guard, crafters, and the reaper slaves.”
“The city gua… no… what are reaper slaves?”
“The slaves who harvest cores and materials from the monsters who are slain.”
Joe blinked, worry coming to the fore, then an epiphany. Oh… crap! All the cores are going to be … perfect and … too many of them… I’m going to have to… ok… infuse mana into the arrows, then… I can do that. I’ve only killed four or five so far, so… Maybe I can shoot the ones I killed? Oh… wait… I only killed two or three, right? Maybe I could find them and shoot them with a mana arrow? Right? And… I shouldn’t have to worry about the others… they’re fighting amongst each other, so should be imbuing their attacks for one another, right?
Joe pulled away from his thoughts, not wanting to be distracted and returned to his original line of questioning, “So… the reaper slaves… they do not fight the monsters?”
“No. The guards keep them safe while the slaves and crafters harvest what they can. They are there to reap the harvest.”
“In the middle of battle?”
Gwenvair nodded, “If the harvest is too slow, it will be lost.”
Joe grimaced at that, “And how many die in the process?”
Gwenvair blinked at that, then frowned, “There are those that… die.”
Joe sighed, “How many?”
It was Gwenvair’s turn to grimace, “There are maybe a hundred. There should be many less this time because of your help.”
Joe took a breath, mollified by what he heard before he nodded his head, “That is… better than I feared, but I do not … like the easy sacrifice of others.”
Gwenvair remained silent, looking at him carefully while other’s looked on. Joe took a deep breath and turned back to the group, “Sacrifice of another against their will is… evil, to my thinking. People can only choose to sacrifice themselves. The slaves below do not have any choice in the matter.”
Gwenvair cocked her head, a bit confused before replying, “So you are … you believe soldiers and war is immoral?”
Joe sighed at that, then chuckled, “Ha! No, not really. As long as the war is for a good cause.”
“But you do not like other’s being sacrificed against their will.”
Joe frowned, “But the soldiers aren’t sacrificed against their will.”
“They must follow the orders of their leaders.”
Joe smiled, “Yes, but they agreed to follow the orders of their leaders, even if those orders might lead to their deaths.”
Gwenvair thought on that for a bit, “So their agreement to be soldiers is an agreement to die?”
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“To die? Hmm… not really. Their agreement is to fight for their count… uh… clan; not to die.”
“But many die in battle.”
“Yes. But the leadership is not sending their soldiers to die. They know some will die, but if the soldiers are well trained and prepared well, they may live. My people do not send soldiers to die if a mission is considered a suicide mission. Any such mission is given only on a volunteer basis and only those who volunteer may partake of the mission.”
Kilniara, Garnedell, and even Zilnek seemed to nod at that, happy to hear it, but Gwenvair seemed a bit shocked by it. Her response seemed shocked, “You have many … enough to volunteer?”
Joe smiled at that, nodding, “The people of my count… clan are taught to be proud of their people and part of our pride is to defend our people and place, the weak, poor, and those who cannot defend themselves.”
Their conversation piddled out after that and Joe fell silent, but the tension of the moment ended when Joe seemed to fall away in thought. The other four, released, returned to their excited conversations and Joe found himself enjoying the silent camaraderie for a few moments. He wasn’t given peace long as a shout from the wall roused him back to the defense and returned to find one section of the monster tide returning to some semblance of order. Joe sighed and stepped up, pulling out an arrow. His eyes scanned the line of monsters until he found one he thought would fight back pretty well. Settling in, he took a deep breath, held it, faded into the moment, and focused only on the arrow and the target. The arrow flew true, striking the ear of the monster.
Another arrow came out, another target chosen, and another well placed shot brought another monster to its knees, this time with the arrow in the foot angled out to catch on those passing by. One more should be enough to get the line in a tangle again. It makes sense… they’re just animals, so… Joe pulled out another arrow even as weakness sapped through him, and by the time he’d chosen another monster, the first two he’d hit were already snapping at the monsters around them. The snarling attack of the second monster was so rapid and distinct it distracted Joe, causing him to miss just a bit. The arrow ended up hitting the haunch of the third monster, but its reaction was so extreme Joe didn’t feel there would be any need for another arrow. It had already turned to snap at the arrow in its haunch and the swing of its massive head was enough to swipe at two of the monsters beside it. Soon, the whole line was once again in a furor of snapping monsters.
Joe was able to sit down and relax again for a short time before he was needed again. This cycle continued for much of the morning with very little change. After a couple of times standing up and taking out various monsters, Joe took the time to bring up his status but found very little change. Guess death by instigating doesn’t get me experience. Huh… or maybe it’s not noticed? Or… not sure… Joe shrugged, unconcerned with his lack of growth as he was more worried about keeping the monsters away from the wall, which he did fairly easily.
What he did do, however, was beginning to work with his infusion and sending mana into the arrow proved easy. However, whenever he went up and shot out an arrow, things went downhill fast. There was a snap and Joe winced with a small grunt when the mana shattered after the arrow left the bow. He couldn’t see what was happening with the first, the surprise and pain from his mana snapping apart interrupted his focus so he fired another one, this time more aware of what was happening.
The arrow once again flew off, Joe less caring of where the arrow went, eyes focused on the mana within the arrow. With care, he was able to notice what happened. The arrow slipped from his fingers and the mana stretched from his fingertips to the arrow but Joe could easily see the mana was growing stretched and strained somehow. After the arrow left a foot or so away, the mana stringing from his hand to the arrow was wild and volatile, erratic in its attempt to remain connected. Then, suddenly, the mana snapped and the mana within the arrow shaft began unraveling in a wild and rapid evaporative explosion. Oddly, it seemed the mana collapsed from the arrow tip back to the fletching, which Joe found odd since the mana seemed to flail wildly from where it snapped from connecting to him. Before the arrow was even a dozen meters from him, the mana exploded out of the arrow shaft in a useless wash of mana that didn’t affect the arrow at all.
Joe frowned. He spent the next period of rest he had to shoot out a good twenty or thirty useless arrows, given the massive fight the monsters were in, but it was still a powerful way for him to practice and figure out why his infusion wasn’t working. No matter what he tried, the mana wrapped around the shaft and into the arrow head would unravel into a wasted wash of mana.
Joe frowned and spent the morning trying to figure it out, but ultimately found himself struggling. Infusion had turned out to be easy for him but somehow keeping the arrow infused didn’t work. How… do I do this? Get the mana… do I need to put in mana to keep it going? Can I do that? How would that work? It seems… Joe’s frown turned to a grimace and he returned to trying to figure it out, wasting a bit of mana doing it all morning.
However, once afternoon came around, things began to change. Joe found himself unable to keep the monsters in a frenzy as immediately after they began snapping at one another, something would immediately bring them back under some kind of control. That’s… totally not natural. Animals don’t act that way… at all. Joe found his exhaustion swelling rapidly, eyes drooping a bit, especially as he found himself at the front firing arrow after arrow, if still slowly and carefully, his shots still aiming to maim and enrage the monsters rather than outright kill them. Doing so, Joe found it to be quite exhausting, but he pushed on. As for the monsters he did kill, they were completely ignored, with the other monsters stomping over the bodies without concern or hunger, their bodies turning to literal mush beneath the strong. Meat eaters tended to savage the corpses, however, tearing them apart before tossing various pieces to the side. They did not eat them, however. It was one of the strangest things Joe had ever seen, with predator and prey charging side by side while predator and scavenger completely ignored the free meals crushed under their feet, working to deliberately clear the field for the monsters after. Well… I guess technically, only the scavengers are ignoring the free meal, but still… His exhaustion only grew, and he sighed.