Derk had heard it said that death and taxes were the only two certainties in life. But if there was one feature of man that could be relied on more than any other, it was stupidity.
Only I would be stuck with such an incompetent crew. He lamented the state of affairs in his mind as he looked at the disaster laid out on the back of his veldstrider. Even the sky seemed to agree, filled with miserable gray clouds.
Cured meats, a veritable feast, ruined, rotting, and consumed by a fuzzy black mold.
He turned on the guilty adventurer, his voice cracking with anger. “How could you have let this happen?”
“It was just before that reaper attacked! I was distracted, right guys?” The young man whose name Derk couldn’t remember looked at his party for help, but they looked away. Of course, they would be suffering because of his mistake, there would be no meat for the rest of the trip.
Derk massaged his temple in sheer disbelief. Everyone knew it was essential to replace the covers on the preservation bags after taking from them. The leather storage wasn’t airtight, and if moisture got in, it would ruin the salted meat within. Humidity was bad enough, but the idiot had let them get rained on. The hams, the fish, they were all ruined. It was basic, the kind of mistake Derk would expect from a child.
He swung his arm toward the ruined bags, his voice spitting with frustration. “This isn’t just a little mistake. You’ve just turned our meat into slop! It was supposed to last us through the next month!” Derk paused, letting the ridiculousness of it all sink in.
The adventurer flinched at the words. He opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself once again, but no words came out.
“Winds take me,” Derk muttered under his breath, pacing again. “I should’ve known a group of bronze rankers would be useless. I would’ve never hired you if I had a choice. But this... This is unbelievable.” He stopped, looked at the ruined meat, and shook his head in disgust. “How could you not see that coming? What kind of idiot—what kind of moron doesn’t remember to cover the stores after eating?”
The party leader, a woman in her thirties, stepped forward, her eyes suddenly angry. “Now hang on, I’ll admit Jeffers is an idiot, but I won’t let you insult my whole team.”
“Oh yes Miss Luci, you are truly an example of the best adventurers The Grass Sea has to offer.”
Her grip tightened on her sword, and the clouds seemed to grow a bit darker. “Watch your tone Derk. You should be thanking us for escorting you through his deathtrap. It’s not like any other party would do it. Pregnant wife or not, you’re a damned fool yourself.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Please, we won’t even see the colossus. The hazard zone is a hundred miles across, and we’re nowhere near the center. And I won’t hear any criticism from the party taking the job.”
“You’re lucky we need this money.” Luci growled, letting go of the hilt and stepping back.
“And you’ll be lucky if you do, considering this disaster. Do you know how much all that meat cost?”
The third member, a man with a flail in chain armor finally snapped. “Listen up you bastard, if you try and cut us out of our payment I’ll—”
He trailed off, his eyes catching on something ahead of them. A moment later, the rest of the adventures saw as well, their eyes widening.
Derk turned. “What is—”
“Get down!” Luci cried. Derk felt a weight slam against him and he hit the saddle hard.
Talons like scythes tore through the leather just beside him, rending it with a shriek of protest. He caught a glimpse of the thing—its sharp, serrated beak, its blood-red eyes, six monstrous limbs between its wings, arms, and legs, each of which were tipped with razor sharp talons—his heart sank, it was a razorbeak. Luci rolled off him and sprang to her feet.
A moment later, a second bird dove towards them. Razorbeaks were enormous, with a wingspan over twenty feet across when fully extended. It lashed out at Luci, a talon raking across her shoulder, splattering blood across the saddle. She hissed in pain but didn’t fall, her own blade arcing downwards in a counter.
The sword cleaved into the razorbeak’s wing joint, severing tendons and bone. The massive bird collapsed onto the saddle as its wing went limp, but it was far from done. It lunged again, its serrated beak snapping at her face.
But the man in armor was already moving. He swung his flail in a brutal arc, the spiked ball smashing into the razorbeak’s flank. The bird screeched, feathers flying, as it crumpled onto the saddle. Hd brought the flail down again—once, twice—until its skull cracked open, dark blood pooling beneath it, soaking into the leather.
“Damn it, I didn’t see them in the clouds.” Luci growled, wincing as she held her bloodied shoulder. “They’re supposed to stick by their perches aren’t they? Why are they out here?”
There was no time for a response, the first bird returned, slamming into the saddle from above. The veldstrider shuddered beneath them, letting out a low groan. The flail-wielder lost his footing, toppling with a grunt as the massive bird attacked him. Its beak punched through his armor and padding both, driving several inches into his side before it slowed.
“Durnan!” The meat-ruiner, Jeffers screamed, his voice breaking.
He held out a thin rope between his fingers with a knot tied in the middle. Fingers blurring, he untied the knot and pulled it taut. A rope of fire sprang from its end, lashing out at the razorbeak and entangling its limbs with an angry hiss. The smell of burning flesh quickly filled the air.
The beast thrashed in pain, dragging and tearing further at Durnan’s body for a moment before its beak was dislodged. As it rolled closer, Derk dove out of the way, desperate to avoid its storm of deadly talons.
With a final screech, the razorbeak tumbled off the side of the strider. Jeffers the mage lurched forward, pulled by the fiery tether as it descended toward the grass below.
“Release!” The fire dissipated and the boy stumbled, teetering over the edge for a moment before Luci grabbed his arm and pulled him back. They collapsed on the ground, panting heavily as the razorbeak emerged from the grass below with a shriek. The beating of its wings shook the stalks as it fought its way back into the air, feathers smoking as it fled.
They breathed a collective sigh of relief, until they saw where it was headed.
“Kings help us…” Derk whispered.
In the air ahead, closing rapidly, was a dark mass of wing and claw. A flock of razorbeaks, hundreds strong, falling from the gray clouds above.
Luci staggered to her feet, clutching her shoulder as blood soaked her clothes. Durnan followed suit, grabbing the lip of the saddle to pull his body off the ground. Jeffers whispered a prayer of his own and began tying a knot back into the rope.
And Derk… began to laugh.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The razorbeaks descended silently, leaving only his haunting laughter to echo out over the grass. Closer, and closer, an inescapable wave of darkness. In a few seconds they would reach the strider, and the crew would be torn apart in moments. The sky all but disappeared in front of them, blocked by the horde.
On the saddle was a pile of meat, festering and covered in black mold.
And then the sky exploded.
Derk’s laughter vanished as the air itself caught fire, filling with heat, light, and sound as the razorbeaks were blown apart. The heat scorched his skin, leaving it red and burnt as the pressure pushed him into the saddle.
The adventurers fell as well, instinctively fleeing the heat as they struggled to comprehend what was happening.
Deafened by the first explosion, they did not hear, but rather felt the subsequent eruptions as the air was torn asunder again and again. It grew hard to breathe from the heat, and not one dared move as the heavens themselves warred above.
None except Jeffers. For he alone could sense the power above was no ordinary fire. It was mana, fire mana, gathered on a scale the likes of which he couldn’t fathom, as though a thousand firestones had gone off at once, and as he turned to look, the view changed yet again.
Not all the razorbeaks had been caught in the initial blast, and they’d quickly scattered, trying to flee the death that chased them. The explosions ceased, and Jeffers saw a thin red line appear in the air, stretching out from some point miles away, beyond his view. It thickened briefly, tendrils of fire grasping out from the line before it condensed again and the line turned orange, then yellow.
And then, the line expanded. It swelled in an instant, catching several of the stragglers and swallowing them up. A blast of fire a hundred feet wide and miles long. And it didn’t stay still. The line of fire swept to the side, incinerating a hundred razorbeaks in an instant as it swung a thousand feet in one direction before dying back down to a thin line, then dissipating a moment later.
Jeffers’s breath left him, tears evaporating on his cheeks from the heat as he stared up at the cloudy sky above.
The explosions began again.
***
Tor yawned, watching absentmindedly as explosions peppered the air a few miles to the south, a nice backdrop against the quiet of the sea.
“Let’s adjust that pattern—tighten the spread,” he intoned into the speaking stone, sending orders to Nereus’s strider where the spells were being headed.
The idiots on the striders had more luck than brains it seemed, saved by the fact that Nereus was present among the patrol, standing on one of the other war-striders nearby. Without him, the pinpoint long-ranged bombardment couldn’t have been set up so quickly, only taking a few minutes after their scouts reported seeing the strider within the perimeter of the hazard zone.
“Kings-damned fools,” he muttered. Part of him wanted to let nature run its course, as any idiot captain who would take a strider into a colossus hazard zone shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce, and any crew that would go along with such an idea wasn’t much better.
Still, he considered himself a man of duty, and so he’d do his job. The colossus watch was stationed at multiple points, miles from the colossus at any time. The distance they kept was so great that the beast wasn’t even visible, but for good reason.
He spoke into a different stone, one that would send his voice to each of his captains—the rank, not to be confused with a veldstrider captain. He had ten of the stones, though only seven were connected. “Mana density is increasing, and we’re making a lot of noise. Keep an eye below the grass and report if anything moves.”
It was easy to get swept up in the fear of the colossus for its size and power—both were undeniable threats—but the true danger lay in the hordes they attracted.
Thousands—no, tens of thousands of monsters and spirit beasts lurking below the grass, drawn by the thickening mana in the area, and heeding the siren’s call of the colossus. Even from out of sight, Tor could feel the faint motion of the ambient mana, drifting past him slowly as it went to gather deeper in the sea.
The razorbeaks were a perfect example, a horde drawn from their perches in the aatava trees that dotted the sea.
He yawned again, and thought of the two gems he’d found hiding in the mud. They were much more interesting than the classic tale of idiots stumbling into trouble.
He’d looked into their story, for all he couldn’t believe it. Finding a soldier who’d even heard of the town of Straetum was difficult, and he hadn’t found anyone that had ever been. But there was no doubt it existed, some small town nestled in the Windfall’s, perhaps more significant than it seemed if The Stillblade had been there. Even if there was nothing wrong with it though, Tor couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.
It was a shame about Wyn’s blessing, because Tor would’ve enjoyed mentoring the boy more. Though clearly talented in his own right, he didn’t seem the genius type. Nereus had praised him quite a bit over drinks, saying he was as hardworking as any actual assistant, and eager to learn. He would’ve taken to channeling well.
Corrin was an entirely different story, a bundle of talent only matched by a few. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve assumed the boy was some lost child of nobility, with an inherited trait of some kind, like the Kergaze’s truesight, or the Venenaris’s hemophage. But as far as Tor could tell, the boy was exactly what he said he was, and he hadn’t mentioned any blessing either. Corrin had a good mentality, one bent towards winning, and a natural grasp for controlling his mana which let him progress quickly. No, if there was one thing that set the child apart, it was his channels.
Tor didn’t have a taste for art. In the five years since the war, its expression had exploded in the capital city of the Edrian kingdom. Grand operas, concerts, and plays were performed daily to crowds of thousands, and the streets overflowed with art in the form of paintings, architecture, and tapestry. Even tournaments and exams held by the academy were affected by the thirst for entertainment, for culture. What were previously opportunities for war recruitment had become spectator sports, watched, bet on, and enjoyed by tens of thousands. Tor could appreciate that at least, but it wasn’t quite the same as art. Thus, while many of his comrades found meaning in the new culture that had sprung up in the city, he found himself unable to appreciate most of it.
However, when he’d seen the boy’s channels for the first time, a part of him had finally understood.
The process of boring channels into the sole was simple in theory, but endlessly complex in its variety. Each channel was created individually, dragging condensed mana through the soul in set patterns by will alone, inch by inch, over and over, until the channel was worn into it. Thicker channels allowed for more mana to pass through, but smaller channels allowed for a faster response time. Any attempt to subvert that simple rule added entirely new layers of complexity—interweaving channels of different sizes, capillaries connected to veins and arteries flowing with mana instead of blood—and with complexity came room for error and inefficiency.
Tor knew exactly how many channels he had—he’d created them himself. One hundred and sixty total, with twelve major channels for his limbs, core and head. He’d redeveloped them when he’d become a spirit knight according to standardizations for an earth channeler of his rank, and they served him well.
The most he’d ever seen personally was three hundred, though he knew for a fact channelers with a count exceeding five hundred existed.
Corrin’s network contained thousands.
To begin, he had twenty five major channels. Twelve was generally considered a good compromise between function, and leaving space for smaller channels, especially considering the difficulty in adding more. But Corrin’s network was so tightly and expertly designed, there was no need for such a compromise. Endless layers and structures interwoven to form something… beautiful. Wherever he’d looked, Tor had seen genius beyond genius. Efficiency and purpose on a level he couldn’t imagine. Beyond that, there were structures and pathways whose use he couldn’t discern—a major channel spiraling up Corrin’s torso for example—but what he could see spoke to an understanding beyond his own. In its effectiveness, it was an art all its own.
And he had absolutely no doubt, Corrin had not created them himself.
Before he could continue down the train of thought any further, he was distracted by silence. The bombardment had ceased, which meant either the strider’s crew had perished, or the horde had been routed. Someone was calling for him, he hadn’t heard it at first.
“Commander? Your orders?” The voice was firm, as expected of a soldier, but without any real urgency. This was still fairly routine.
He turned to the officer standing straight beside him, startling the younger man a bit. “Ah yes…”
Did they survive?
Tor peered out towards the sun, shading his eyes with his hand as he filled them with mana. He hadn’t ever quite mastered a magnification technique, but he could get most of the way.
“Ah good, they’re alive.”
“Um… yes sir? Should they not be?”
“No no, that’s the best outcome. Send a few striders and escort the fools around to Estin.” Tor clapped the man on the shoulder.
“Right away commander.” The officer strode to the back of the strider and began barking orders to the bellman. Soon, a ringing sound could be heard throughout the sea, orders by bell, and the formation of striders started to slowly shift as the orders were carried out.
Tor sighed, settling into a parade rest as he surveyed the scene, thinking about the rest of the battles ahead. The Grass Sea was a terrible battleground, worse even than water itself. Options for traversing it were limited, and as such communication was limited. If he had one concern for the battle ahead, it was that.
While he could communicate directly with his captains via speaking stone, the budget for the expedition hadn’t allowed enough for each strider to have one. As such, the rest were divided amongst the lieutenants, each with four striders under their direct command. Forty speaking stones for almost a hundred and sixty striders, and the adventurers were mostly independent, so they wouldn’t have them either.
In short, the whole hunt was sure to be a pain in the ass.