A thousand men woke silently in the waning hours of the night. The cheap lightstones—filled under the weakening autumn sun, had winked out, leaving the town in a complete, and impenetrable darkness. Amidst the stillness, a single flame burst forth, chasing back the night with an ethereal purple light.
Wyn rubbed his eyes with his free hand as he came to—sleepiness burnt in an instant when he used his blessing, but the habit remained. It helped to clean the gunk that accumulated in the night anyways.
He was the first to awaken, but that didn’t last long. Within a few minutes, Corrin and Ven had been roused as well.
“He is handy to travel with,” Ven mused, earning Corrin’s agreement.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Wyn asked for the third time.
Ven nodded, his face cast harshly in the flickering light of spirit flame. “I am sure. My mind was set the moment you told me we would stay. This Colossus… he is not the Colossus of the South, but he intends to chase me from my home just the same. If we are to kill him, I must be there. It is a gift of fate.”
Wyn watched as the Aleran man strung his bow carefully in the dim. His eyes were unusually hard, and his expression was one of focus, for all the captain liked to take things as they came.
I guess you can only ever know a piece of someone.
To his shock, when Reiss had come back after Tor’s speech, he’d informed them that Ven had volunteered for the battle. Since he was yet to be crewed, and Wyn and Corrin were without a ride, it had only made sense. The senior adventurer had also hinted he had a mage in mind to accompany them, but he hadn’t given any more details at the time.
Within minutes, they were ready. Ven took his position at the front of the saddle, and Siensa lurched forward, grass rustling beneath them.
It was quiet atop the saddle. Wyn wasn’t nervous anymore, but it just wasn’t natural to talk much so soon after waking.
That only lasted so long, and silence gave way to quiet, growing chatter as they made their way around the outskirts of town towards the eastern docks. They’d arrived a bit early, but even still, over a hundred striders were already there, waiting by firelight, or the rare lightstone that would stay lit throughout the long night.
Spirits seemed high though, and the soldiers that had gathered waved to them with a quiet cheer. But Siensa’s path went around them as Ven took them towards a separate wing of docks, away from the bulk of the soldiers. There, only two other striders were present, and Wyn recognized the group atop one as they approached—The Grass Sentinels.
They came to a halt only about twenty feet away from the other veldstrider, and the older man Reiss called out across the gap.
“Seems we’re the earliest here. We still have about thirty minutes before we leave, so please, join us for breakfast.”
Corrin leapt the gap excitedly as Wyn and Ven made their way down to the dock and back up the other side. Wyn could have made the jump as well, but there was no need to push things so early in the morning, especially with what seemed to be a long fight ahead.
The Sentinels had a decent spread of breakfast foods—bread, sausages, and assorted fruits, and Wyn happily dug in.
“Try not to eat too much, you don’t want to be full,” Reiss advised.
“Yeah yeah we know,” Ayden chuckled. “You say that every time. Melanie could you pass the jam—spirits! You used all of it!”
“Mmph mmph,” the mage mumbled, her mouth filled with bread. “Mmph mmph, mmph mmm.”
“Chew your damn food!”
“Wyn, hand me one of those agaraberries.”
“Yeah sure,” Wyn tossed one over to Corrin, who moaned happily as he bit into it.
“Well, for wind I tend to imagine it blowing however I choose,” Reiss was saying to Emryn, “but with earth I believe you want a more solid visualization…”
A few conversations mixed and overlapped, and the mood was light. Wyn couldn’t help but smile as he enjoyed the atmosphere. Eventually, he scooted over to where Ayden was sitting. The spearman was moodily biting into a piece of buttered bread, all too dry for his liking.
“So, did you talk to Emryn yet?”
Ayden looked away. “Well, I apologized at least… I promised her we’d talk about it more after the hunt.”
“That’s a terrible idea you know?”
“Why? Should I have done it sooner?”
Wyn slapped his forehead. “No, you just don’t make promises like that! You’re asking to die!”
“Is that a thing?” Ayden asked, growing moderately concerned.
“I mean, probably not really, but it happens in stories all the time. If the knight says he’ll marry her once he returns from battle, you know he’s not coming back!”
“Damn… I didn’t know. Agh, can I take it back?”
“Ah there he is!” Reiss interrupted. “Corrin, Wyn, and—Ven was it? This is the mage I’ve recruited for your strider. The rest of his team is too injured to participate, so it works out perfectly.”
Wyn peaked over the side of the saddle where a young man was standing nervously. He was dressed in gray robes and his hands were fiddling with an odd webbing of string, twisting and tying it absentmindedly as he glanced up and bowed.
“Um… hello, my name is Jeffers. I’m a bronze rank adventurer—mage, I’ll be accompanying you on the hunt.”
Corrin leaned over and whispered to Reiss. “How good is bronze rank?”
“Well… you’ll want to keep an eye on him,” Reiss said. “But he should listen. I told him you two were strong enough to be gold, so he’ll defer to you.”
“Dead weight huh?” Corrin glanced back down at the mage. He was older than either of them, maybe even in his twenties, but he carried himself like a child.
Wyn smiled and kicked the ladder down. “Welcome aboard Jeffers, it’ll be good to have you. I’m afraid Corrin and I aren’t able to cast much ourselves. Why don’t you come up here and eat with us? You can tell us what you can do so we can plan around it.”
“You have food?” The mage’s eyes went wide, his nervousness disappearing at the mention of eating. “T-thank you! I’ll tell you anything you need, what do you have?” He climbed up the ladder, staring at the spread.
Corrin stifled a laugh, and Wyn had to resist one himself.
They ate for a while longer, but soon the veldstriders began to move. One by one, they formed a line and embarked into the sea. What little food remained they dumped onto the docks—it couldn’t be allowed to take room on the saddle. Then, they began to prepare as well. A few quick goodbyes were said, but they soon ran out of time.
Reiss grabbed Wyn as he turned to jump striders. “I take it you’ll be doing most of the leading on your side?”
Wyn straightened his back, meeting the older man’s gaze. “Well, it’s me or Corrin…”
“Winds help us if he were in charge,” he chuckled. “Well, in that case, allow me to say—we’ll be just ahead of you in the formation. So we’ll watch your backs, and you watch ours. Let’s make sure we all return safely, yes?”
Wyn took a step back, holding out his hand. Reiss looked for a moment, and then smiled, clasping it firmly.
“Let’s kick this thing’s ass.”
They let go and Wyn turned, hopping across back to his strider where the others were already preparing. Ven tapped a faint rhythm against Siensa’s back, and the strider turned to face the east, towards the direction the rest were heading.
Ahead on the Sentinel’s strider, Ayden looked back and stuck his fist in the air.
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“Damn him,” Corrin grumbled, but he was grinning. He thrust his own fist into the air as well, and a moment later, Wyn did the same. In time, all but the mages had returned the gesture, and the veldstriders began to move, the grass whispering beneath them as they left Estin behind.
The hunt was on.
***
As he sat in the saddle, Wyn fiddled with the pommel of his sword, watching as a green light shot into the sky from the center of the formation half a mile away. It was a signal from the skiff, the vanguard had made first contact with a horde. The ‘flares’ as Reiss had called them, were the primary method of communication between Tor and the adventurers, with the veldstrider formation spanning a vast distance—too large for traditional communication. Their strider was on the right wing of the formation, which had the vanguard spread out in a semicircle moving eastward. There were three layers of defenses surrounding a core of mages and artillery within. If any hordes came from the southern flank, they would be the first to encounter them.
By estimations he’d heard, they were still at least an hour out from the colossus, which they expected to reach some time after sunrise. And still, they were already encountering hordes? It would be a fight just to get there.
“We’ve entered the hazard zone,” Ven announced. “Stay wary.”
“It’s moving,” Corrin muttered aloud. His eyes were wide with realization, staring towards the front of the formation, towards the horizon.
“Moving?” Wyn asked.
“The mana. It’s moving that way,” he pointed ahead. “It’s like it’s being pulled towards… oh.”
The Colossus.
No one responded to that. What was there to say?
Eia, how are we looking? Wyn asked, his eyes sweeping the sea for her familiar purple light.
This is taking a while, she sent back. They’re much harder than the spirits we’ve used before, more stubbornly attached to their hosts. How does it feel?
Wyn surveyed the weight in his mind for a minute, trying to gauge it better. Fine, maybe a quarter of capacity. I’ll tell you if you need to stop.
I’m not sure how I feel about this plan, Wyn. We have no idea how many you’ll need. And this time they will be affecting you directly.
I don’t plan on using them. But keep going, just in case. They’ll be more useful than any of the others we’ve tried if it works.
Fine. Her thought had a hint of resignation. Just don’t fall off the strider okay?
I’ll be fine, he chuckled. Tor said the adventurers won’t be in much danger on the wings.
“Approach from the south!” Ven barked.
Wyn’s head swiveled and he saw it, a horde of beasts, traveling fast towards them through the top of the grass, leaping out like fish from water as they tore across the surface. It was a herd, wide enough that they, along with the nearest four striders would all be engulfed.
He sighed. “That’s my bad.”
The mage, Jeffers, gave him a strange look as he readied the web of string between his fingers.
“Are those leapers?” Corrin asked, peering into the darkness. “I thought they were herbivores.”
“They’re not usually a threat,” Ven agreed, “But if they keep heading this way it will be dangerous. They leap up over the saddle, smacking into whatever is in their way, and they’re much heavier than they look.”
“Could we just duck and let them pass?” Jeffers asked.
Wyn shook his head. “No, we need to at least thin the pack for the next line. We can’t let them hit the mage core. They have to remain untouched until we reach the colossus. Do you have any spells that can affect a large area?”
“One, but I’ll have to wait for them to get closer.”
“Got it. Ven, fire the signal, Jeffers, ready your spell, and Corrin, we’re on defense.”
The four of them sprang into action. Ven abandoned the helm, heading for a small cylinder attached to the back of the saddle. He lit the fuse as Corrin’s sword sang its way out of its scabbard.
A moment later, sparkpower in the base ignited with a crackling pop and a burst of light shot out the top.
A shrill whistle pierced the sea as the light spiraled up into the sky, higher and higher. Then it burst in a shower of white light, signaling to the rest of the hunt that there was contact with the horde on the flank.
A yellow flare shot up from the center of the formation, a reply from Tor on the skiff.
Across the formation, yet another flare went off as adventurers came under attack there as well.
Wyn steadied himself, this was just the beginning. He drew his own sword and watched as the leapers approached. Fifty feet, forty , thirty…
The leaper in front leapt, jumping a good ten feet above the grass, its long scaly body glinting in the light of the flare as it flapped its small wings furiously, staying aloft for a few seconds more.
An arrow pierced its side, knocking it into the sea, thrashing as it released a strangled chirping sound. Wyn looked in the direction it had come from—further up the line, Reiss was holding his bow aloft, already nocking another arrow. His face was hardly visible in the night, but his eyes met Wyn’s, and he nodded once.
Wyn nodded back, then turned to meet the wave.
The first leapers reached the strider, leaping up over its back. He slashed two out of the air, as Corrin’s blade cleaved through another. Ven loosed arrow after arrow into the approaching horde, notably adept with a bow. Besides them, the mage was trembling, the strings beginning to glow with an orange light.
“Steady Jeffers,” Wyn said. “Hold it… hold it.”
The center of the horde drew closer, he and Corrin cut down half a dozen more. Each one was terribly weak on its own. Just a bit closer…
“Now!”
Jeffers fingers shifted, changing the pattern in the webbing of string between his hands. A line of fire erupted in the grass ahead. The leapers screamed as they caught flame, falling out of sight.
A few leapt through the flames, but they quickly found the ends of Wyn and Corrin’s blades. Up and down the line, similar spectacles unfolded as mages let loose their spells. A bolt of lightning arced between scores of the beasts on one end, while on the other, thick shards of ice formed in the air and speared through them by the hundreds. By the time the horde was gone, only four or five had snuck past, and they’d be dealt with by the interior striders.
As they settled down, Corrin clapped the mage on the shoulder. “Nice work! That spell was awesome! I mean, you said you could do it of course, but seeing it is totally different!”
“Yeah, no kidding. Is that string acting as your focus?” Wyn asked. The mage clearly needed some confidence, and he was also genuinely curious.
Jeffers broke into a smile. “Oh well, yeah it is. But it’s also part of the spell. See, I use knots to—”
Another flare shot up only a few striders away, whistling into the sky towards the southeast.
“Hold that thought,” Wyn said. In the sky to the right of the flare, a dark mass was growing closer, hard to spot in the dim light. “It’ll have to wait.”
Siensa let out a low rumble, the saddle shaking as the movement began to pick up.
Ven reached over the front lip and patted her shell calmly, saying something Wyn didn’t hear over the burst of the flare above.
The four of them readied their weapons once again.
It was going to be a long approach.
***
Corrin could feel it getting stronger, the pull.
It had been weak at first, hardly noticeable, like standing in a shallow creek. But as they’d drawn closer, the creek had grown into a deep, raging river. The mana was thicker, almost like the deep floors of the dungeon, and it was flowing. He felt it brushing past him, faster and faster, trying to drag him with it, and he could understand what the colossus wanted—it wanted to feed.
Their direction had changed subtly, heading further south as the direction of the flow had changed. The Colossus had been on the move.
The sun had risen in the sky, though it was still low, hardly over the horizon. It had been almost an hour since the first leaper attack.
But since then, they hadn’t stopped fighting.
Corrin rammed his sword into the throat of the last grass drake, shoving it off the side of the saddle. He hadn’t anything more than minor scrapes, but he collapsed onto his ass anyways, panting heavily as he slumped against the saddle. Per orders, they’d rotated into the second layer of the formation to rest, but it was almost impossible to prevent attacks from slipping past the outside when they could attack from below.
Attacks from the sky were fine, as the mages could unleash spells that scorched the sky without fear of hitting their own men, but the hordes below the surface were innumerable and unknown. There’d been not more than five minutes of reprieve between each battle, and the sea echoed with sounds of distant battles across the formation. Spells cast, howls of pain both human and otherwise, and the deep rumble of veldstriders provided a constant background to the environment.
Around the saddle, his teammates were no better off save perhaps Wyn who was only breathing a bit heavy in between swigs of water from a canteen. The tell tale glow of spirit fire burned behind his eyes.
They’d hardly spoken between battles to conserve energy, but now Ven spoke, gazing into the distance.
“Look ahead, I believe we’re approaching the Shattered Stone Forest. It’s one of the most beautiful sights in…” he trailed off. His face began to twist, briefly to horror, but then to a look of resolve as his eyes hardened. He spoke quietly, two simple words.
“It’s here.”
The world grew darker as The Stone Forest came into view, stretching across the horizon. What had once been difficult to see in the sun now grew clearer as they came into its shadow.
The stone forest’s spires were sharp and jagged, and tall enough to pierce both the earth and sky, ancient spears hurled by titans that trampled mountains underfoot. Twisting, mangled, trees and vines grew along the sides of the karsts, clinging to their surfaces like dying men grasping for life.
Shadows stretched long and sharp from the stone across the sea in the early morning light, hiding the assembled army from the sun’s gaze in patches of stark blackness. Across the sea, the banners had fallen limp, hanging weakly as the wind grew still. The sounds of battle were unceasing, but to Corrin, they grew hushed, distant. There was beauty here—an almost divine stillness.
At first, his eyes struggled to comprehend it. The karst nearest them began to move. It was distant still, but its silhouette against the sun shifted and warped, and then... he saw.
It was beautiful as well, in a terrible sort of way. Its full form was impossible to make out—half its body was hidden behind the spire as its head rose up over the top, casting its own shadow on the army below. Yet still, more of its body was hidden beneath the grass at the base of the stone. Did it have a tail? More limbs? All that Corrin could see was this:
A mountain of muscle and bone, plated in ridged armor which caught the sun and glistened like molten gold. Four horns, thicker than the spearwood jutted out from an almost insectoid head, with grasping mandibles, and deep depressions where its eyes should be. Two reptilian legs clutched the side of the karst, while two arms like those of a praying mantis stood ready to strike, their blades large enough to shear through a house. There was no efficiency to its creation, no design. It was a blasphemous patchwork of different creatures and species, all folded into one, unfathomably large body. An abomination.
A Colossus.