Pirin nodded slowly. A wizard alone could be powerful, but a single powerful wizard was expensive to raise to Flare quickly, not to mention properly enhance their body and craft the runebond. This army could extend control over a wide patch of land, and, if Mr. Tante was correct about their strength, they could overwhelm a wizard with enough numbers.
Pirin looked down, turning his gaze to the edge of the atrium. A group of finished weavelings stood near the edge, watching over the process and standing guard. They wore brassy armour that almost matched the golden tone of their fabric skin. Their eyes shone pure white through the open face of their helmets. Each of them stood straight, holding their spears and shields in a perfectly regimented military fashion.
Near the top of the dome, another platform overlooked the entire dome. It was a control platform. Glass windows enclosed it entirely, and silhouettes moved around inside it, marking off notches on parchment. An ostal overseer leaned down to the counter, and while Pirin couldn’t perfectly see what he was doing, the windstones crackled a few seconds later.
“Mr. Vaire, please report to the oversight chamber at once,” a voice rolled through every windstone in the facility, scratchy and crackly, like someone was dropping gravel on Pirin’s ears while he tried to listen. “Repeat: Mr. Vaire, please report to the oversight chamber at once.”
Pirin glanced at Myraden. Her face was hard to read at the best of times, but even now, he caught a glimmer of surprise in the corners of her eyes.
As soon as the voice died out, Pirin asked, “Where are you keeping the finished products?” Pirin asked, purging all warmth from his voice.
“That is what the rest of the platforms are for,” said Mr. Tante, motioning to the south. “Housing, training, and shipping. We have a fleet of transports ready to bear them to the mainland at any moment.”
“What do they eat? Do they need sustenance?” Pirin asked.
Mr. Tante regarded him suspiciously. “Lady Neria has not told two secret project of hers this?”
“I want to hear it from you,” Pirin said quickly. If he didn’t reply quickly, the lie would fall apart.
“Only reams upon reams of sailmaking weave,” said Mr. Tante. “Which we have plenty of.”
“Very good.” Pirin nodded. “May I see—”
Before he could finish, a blast of wind tore through the wall. It blasted out from around a corner, smashing through the wall, and caught Pirin in the chest.
Pirin flew backward through the glass window. The aftershock and wooden shrapnel caught Mr. Tante and flung him through after Pirin, and they both landed on the floor of the sewing room. Pirin tumbled to a halt right in front of a table, where two workers cut fabric into strips and layered it onto a lifeless Weaveling’s body.
He leapt to his feet, barely injured—aside from a few scratches. His enhanced body had taken most of the blow. Mr. Tante, a mortal, groaned and staggered to his feet. He clutched his arm and gasped. Blood ran down his forehead from a deep gash. He looked at Pirin, then back up at the hole in the wall.
Gray leapt out the tear in the wall. She fluttered down toward Pirin, shooting along like an arrow before sliding to a halt. Need me to peck him for you? It’s a trap! It has to be! They betrayed us!
Göttrur peeked his head out of the saddle pouch and yipped angrily.
“Look, Gray,” Pirin said, pointing back at the hole in the
Ethelvaed and his horse leapt out through the gap in the wall. They landed on the sewing floor. Ethelvaed drew his short sword and pointed it at Pirin. “He’s the black-haired elf! He’s not with the company!”
Pirin’s hair, which had previously flopped over his ears, now sopped back behind his head. His coat was wide open, revealing his dirty outside garb.
He threw off his coat and drew his sword. The game was over now, and there was no point in hiding.
“Intruders, both of you!” Mr. Tante shouted. “Weavelings! You there! I command you to destroy them!”
The cluster of weavelings closest to the wall all pointed their spears and made a formation with the shields, protecting themselves and each other.
Up on the edge of the atrium, beyond the hole in the glass he’d fallen through, red light flashed. A strand of blue silk whirled past. Myraden was fighting someone. For the moment, he couldn’t count on her joining the fight.
Pirin held his sword in his right hand and reached for the control dagger with his left hand. His fingers brushed the pommel, but he stopped. He needed to know more about the Weavelings, and if he used the dagger right away, he’d never learn anything.
He took a two-handed grip on his sword. Gray hopped into place beside him and chirped. The workers scattered, abandoning their stations and sprinting to the edges of the room.
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“Ready?” he asked.
Who’re we going after first? Gray asked.
The weavelings split into two groups. A cluster of ten converged on Ethelvaed and his horse, and a cluster marched toward Pirin and Gray. They took defensive stances and glanced at each other warily. One of them spoke in a language that sounded like ruffling fabric and luffing sails, but they didn’t speed up.
They were nervous.
Mr. Tante shouted, “Fight them, or the Lady Neria will punish you when she returns, and you’ll wish you’d never been woven!”
At that, the weavelings sped up, as if an invisible whip had all cracked on their backs. The first group charged at Ethelvaed, and the second at Pirin.
Pirin flicked his hand out to the side and launched a Shattered Palm at Mr. Tante. The blast flung him across the room. He crashed through a work table, scattering cutting knives and scissors and a bucket of Essence pellets. He didn’t get up again.
Pirin looked the weavelings straight in their glowing eyes. They were all the height and build of man, though there was slight variation between them in height and width. Aside from their eyes, their faces were blank fabric stretched over a vaguely humanoid facial structure. It didn’t move like a man’s face would, and though they had the suggestion of lips, they didn’t part when the creatures spoke.
Pirin unleashed another Shattered Palm straight forward. The weavelings stopped and pointed their shields forward, bracing themselves. The blast pushed them back a few feet, but they stayed standing, and when the lightning-blue Essence streaks faded, they kept charging.
One jabbed a spear at Pirin. He swung at the spear’s shaft with his sword, trying to hack off the spearhead, but the weaveling moved faster than he’d expected. His sword glanced off the haft, and the weaveling resisted the strength of the blow. They were stronger than men and elves, physically. They didn’t have to worry about inconvenient things like muscles.
Gray chirped, then fluttered, creating a gale and pushing the weavelings back. Pirin spun away, whirling his sword behind him to guard his back. He activated the Fracturenet to give himself strength, then, as the weavelings charged back toward him, he hacked through the hafts of their spears. He hit two, shattering their spears. They drew short swords from their belts.
On the command of their leader, all five fanned out into a semicircle, pushing Gray and Pirin closer together.
Coordinated and effective, even in small groups. Imagine if he used battle meditation with them. Pirin nodded with satisfaction, as if they were his own soldiers.
Not yet, Gray reminded him. First, you have to survive this. Please survive this!
As the weavelings tightened, Pirin deactivated the Fracturenet. He reached into his haversack and pulled his mask out. He slotted it onto his face and activated his Reyad, then created a coating of wind around himself and Gray, bolstering only their speed, but to a greater degree.
In a flash, and harnessing sword Reign—cutting with a profound desire—he slashed through the weavelings’ spears. He used a Winged Fist to rip the shields out of the hands of two of them, then slashed through the shields of two more. His swipes, sped up by his enhanced body and his shield of wind, hacked through the shields in an instant as they drew their swords.
Gray pounced on one and ripped the sword out of his hand with her beak, and Pirin leapt over the others, controlling the wind to fly higher than before. He danced between them as they spun to react—remarkably fast, but not enough to match him—and batted the swords out of their hands.
It was time for their last inspection. He pointed his sword at one, manifesting gnatsnapper Essence in the fuller, and held a concentrated ball of air and feathers in his left hand. Gray had two of them under her talons. She hadn’t killed them yet, but they couldn’t move.
“Surrender,” Pirin commanded, “and I will not harm you. If I fail, your quality will be known to even Lady Neria—that you tried your hardest.”
He pulled his coat over the control dagger, so they wouldn’t see it and understand the risk it posed—it wouldn’t factor into their decision.
The weavelings who could raise their hands did. They dropped to the floor. Pirin kicked their weapons away. Gray jumped off the two she was holding down. That about settles it, then, right?
“They value their lives enough to not throw them away,” Pirin muttered back. He looked down at the control dagger with disdain.
Commanding the weavelings wasn’t about authority or brute strength. He knew what he had to do to take hold of the army.
But first, he had a horseman to take care of.
Ethelvaed ripped apart his weavelings without mercy. He hacked through their bones and cut them into small pieces, disrupting their inner workings. His horse kicked and trampled them. When the inner wraith lost enough matter, it collapsed and disintegrated, and the weaveling died.
My inner wraith feels bad for them, Gray remarked.
“I’m sure it does,” Pirin whispered. He glanced at the five surrendering weavelings, and they stared up at him. He gave them a nod, then raised his sword and sprinted toward Ethelvaed and his horse.
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Lady Neria’s airship had never travelled so fast in its entire service. The poor vessel creaked and groaned, and the envelope stretched. Shreds of fabric ripped off the exterior, exposing the wooden frame and gasbags to the elements. Two more gasbags ripped, but Three patched them with Essence before they could leak too much gas. The fins shuddered precariously, and
She didn’t know exactly what the Unbound Lords were doing. Three’s Green blood-Essence mixture pushed against the sails, taking on the form of his dragon-bat hybrid technique, but they only powered one side of the ship.
On the other side, Lord Two forced swirls of bright purple tyrrh-shrub petals into the sail, and he rammed the technique in so hard that it pushed the ship.
A normal wizard wouldn’t have been able to maintain the technique for days, like they had, but they were Unbound Lords. They had elixirs, experience, and unmatched practice. They’d easily overwhelm any Wildflame, despite being at the same stage.
But even so, they couldn’t protect the airship forever. It would need repairs when they reached Weavehome.
Thank the Eane the Stormwall was just ahead.