The being walks through dawn, morning, and noon. There is a limp to her gait, ever slight but present with each step. Her messy curled dark as night hairs are only barely restrained by the helmet on her head and form a lion's mane.
The being remains unchallenged as those who sought to block her way reel when meeting her in flesh, wielding armor and blade as tools that sustain her freedom. They have all heard stories of the three battles she delivered against those who hindered her path by now and none wish to be made a fourth example.
The being knows such things cannot last as the groups of soldiers are growing larger and she is encountering them more frequently. At some inevitable point, she will run into more than she can handle.
Yet, the being has no fear of it. She can feel herself on the verge of understanding the best way to manipulate kinetic force through flow and, once she has, she will become her sister's equal as long as she has energy to spend.
Or at least the being will return to the peak of her capability which will only grow once she is made whole. For now, her most pressing concern is why there aren't more soldiers after her and where those she took upon herself to protect are.
--- --- ---
Far, far east from Caeviel is a city in ruins, a city in runes filled with black flow to the point where any more will cause the stone it permeates to begin crumbling, which will destabilize the construct in a cascading effect.
As such, the Rykz Queen knows she must seize and remain at the core of the runic construct to maintain it. The issue is that three regiments of phalangites supported by three flow-smiths have retreated there.
The gigantic sentient plant-insect bends her reversed knee and brings her thigh forth before violently lowering her foot. Her root-like toes fall upon the remains of a guardhouse and crush it.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
A rain of tiny constructs rain on her lower-waist for that single step, bruising and shredding her flesh hardened by a construct. She waves a tendril at the humans in the fort, launching a thick lightning tree that obliterates an entire squad of auxiliary archers and damages much of the phalangites' gear despite much of it being intercepted by lightning-rods.
The disruption construct applied on the area suppresses the main core of the runic construct they've built in these ruins. There are redundancies but it is difficult for the Queen to strike down distant pockets of resistance while fighting.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The ten-meter high Rykz plunges her toes into the hard soil and raises her other leg. Golden strands appear where she was to lay her foot down. She urgently swings her tail down, throwing her entire body back.
Crack. The large tail hits upon a wall and destroys it. The Queen wavers for a moment but prevents the humans from taking advantage by launching a second wave of lightning.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
Immediately after the bolts land, a wave of powerful air-blades launches at her. The four Princesses hidden nearby intercept a good half but the rest leave gashes on the Queen that would tear a human in half.
Yet, these gaping wounds merely inconvenience the Queen whose knowledge of her body's biology extends so far that she can mend her flesh with healing constructs for less energy than it cost the humans to injure it and almost as fast as she is injured.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The most detrimental aspect of doing this is the loss of mass through bleeding which sharply limits her ability to remain in combat, never mind the effect doing battle has on her lifespan.
There is also the damage that flow inflicts when used extensively to heal in a short period of time. If she keeps fighting for another half-hour, she may have to shed entire chunks of her body to regrow the flesh.
The Queen knows she is too close to the front-line. She gathers energy into the runic construct spanning the city and triggers an earthquake centered on the half-crumbled fortress.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The humans, fearing that the mass of black flow announces another devastating tide of lightning that seems to bounce from wall to wall, make the worst decision possible and take cover so that their helmets don't poke above their lightning-rods, allowing the warriors to push in on their previous positions.
When the ground rumbles, it is too late for them to react and go back in the open. The flow-smiths react quickly with a wide-scale shaping construct to calm the earth, they spot and stop gaping fissures from opening but there is only so much one can do when one stands in the middle of unstable walls.
Rocks start tumbling and the soil starts shaking, forcing humans to protect their heads with either shields or their mere forearms while they stumble around. The warriors take advantage of their four pointy leg's stability to advance and break through phalangite lines.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The phalangites do their best to counter-attack and take cover behind dead drones but the tide of Rykz doesn't stop and they can already see the top of the harvester's triangular heads poking out from behind the dull Vuskyt shield-wall.
The ground's rumbling stops within a minute but, during that time, the human lines become irrecoverable. The three Majors trigger their last resort, they order the flow-smiths to pour all the energy they have into the sympathetic constructs.
Then, they order a step by step retreat in the streets to facilitate a complicated maneuver. The back-line is to change gear and then switch to the front-line which will then change gear and become supporting phalangites.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
They will then proceed to engage in a rotating retreat where their lines will keep shifting so that fresh troops in fresh gear will always be facing the pressuring harvesters who are already breathing down their necks.
The Rykz Queen is elated by this response and orders the harvesters to be given enough energy to sustain melee combat with the short-spear wielding phalangites, who are no less dangerous than when they use sarissas but much easier to reach.
She does not call the warriors back as five regiments of those drones have already sacrificed themselves during the push or are in the process of doing so. She instead orders the usage of a grinding formation to exploit the openings given by the Twelfth's retreat.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The drones' ranks start rotating as if using a melee cantabrian circle where reserves move from the center to reinforce the edges. Each individual warrior slashes out with their sabers at staggered timings. The result is an unending stream of strikes falling on the phalangites' shields and armors.
The drone casualties climb even further because they abandoned their shield-wall but each warrior launches at least one strike before dying and that is plenty enough to fulfill their duty to the Hive.
Few constructs are used during this phase of the battle but both sides use the remainder of their projectiles. Javelins fly out, arrows pierce down from the sky, oil sacks meant for the trebuchet are thrown by groups of four engineers using strengthening constructs, isolates scouts appear over piles of rubble only to throw themselves in the middle of archers to set them ablaze.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
Chaos reigns as the Queen takes four long steps to enter the core of the fortress uncontested. She sends out a fog of black energy from her tendrils and neutralizes the cleverly laid disruption construct that shut down the core of the city's runic construct.
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“Rhyyykz!” The Queen bellows, a signal to order every Princess present in the ruin's surroundings that she has seized control.
Flow starts pouring into the gigantic construct from thirty different sources to be redistributed almost instantly across the runes. The Rykz Queen turns to the west-east avenue where a good part of her harvesters are still being held back by heavy cavalry.
She directs energy there, shrouding the battlefield in thick black flow, and lets out a storm of lightning that breaks their defensive constructs and scorches two-thirds of the Nobles from the inside out.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
Their ranks break instantly, not that there are any left to break as only the rear companies survive the onslaught. The riders turn tail and gallop west on the avenue or take streets, either way they disturb the Twelfth's retreating regiments who are forced to let them pass or be trampled.
Templar Remus walks out of a ruin with a charcoaled leather armor and chain-mail. There are tears exposing his burnt forearms, his face is scorched, yet he holds Marshal Ciervo's smoking body tightly in his arms. He does not know it yet but he is the only survivor of the disaster that struck them.
He witnesses only a small part of the debacle but it suffices for him to realize that it is too late to retreat while abandoning everything behind. The Phalanx is already engaged through and through.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
Only slaughter remains in these ruins with the hope that enough will escape to reinforce the Eleventh and the Thirteenth because the Twelfth is finished as a Phalanx until new recruits are picked from the training camps.
It may even be disbanded with honors by the Emperor if there are too many casualties to be remade under a new Marshal who may accept veterans of the old one. Such events are rare as the Empire can't afford to dismiss experienced phalangites but necessary to honor and repay sacrifices made.
--- --- ---
Duke Fallone wakes in agony atop a warhorse held by one of his Counts. Every time the mount's hooves hit the ground, it causes the general to feel indescribable pain.
Every single step shakes him down to his core because his plate armor melded with his skin under the lightning construct's intense discharge. His flesh feels like it's melting but also seems numb at the same time, as if he is gradually losing sensations.
The scorching heat radiating from nine-tenths of his body is so intense it almost seems cold. He can feel an odd viscosity across some patches of his flesh, he can guess it is pus which both disgusts and scares the Duke.
He only manages to stay conscious, this time out of every other time the pain woke him up, by sheer force of will. The reason is that his eyes opened to find that he's exiting the ruins through he west, meaning the coalition army is retreating. The problem, the very reason why he must remain awake, is that it is chaos.
Auxiliaries are stepping on auxiliaries while members of his heavy cavalry regiment are trampling through the crowd in such panic they show no regard for the comrades in arms they're killing in their folly to go through the corridor of safety dug by the Templars and held by light cavalry and auxiliary regiments.
Every soldier in the ruins is fleeing as fast as they can except the Twelfth whose absence indicates the Phalanx is attempting to retreat in good order. Fallone knows well that their failure to do so has none to do with a lack of discipline but has everything to do with the pressure the auxiliaries fleeing west as well as Rykz harvesters applying with their gigantic bodies and four scythe arms to pressure them.
Fallone knows he can resolve one of these issues and he fully intends to do so. He feebly raises his hand towards the crowd of auxiliaries and draws every drop of flow within reach, he then uses part of that energy to link to more reserves until he's emptied all those who swore allegiance to him as a general.
This action by itself causes some to pause and regain their spirits, mostly officers, but disappointingly few of the heavy cavalry members rein in their mounts. In fact, some push their horses even more because the loss of their flow worsens their mental states.
“General, you can't handle this right now! Let me take you to the Eleventh!” The Count protests.
“Ihrkh.” Fallone coughs only to experience mind-rending pain from the burns inside his throat and lungs.
He decides to slowly close his fist. This simple action is a fight against a horrendous and exponentially vivid scorching radiation in his hand, as he is melting from the outside in, down to his bones that he imagines are blackening like firewood.
The flow he is connected to spreads out in a fog and weighs down on the fleeing soldiers, inviting them to participate in weaving a singular defensive construct that will encompass all of the auxiliaries' gear.
It is a far cry from a sympathetic construct but it is all the Duke could think of to make the auxiliaries remember that they aren't alone that they can fight together. Fallone's gambit somewhat pays off at it draws quite a few fighters to reform lines in the outskirts.
Then, the Count turns his warhorse and shows to the general the state of the ruins. There is dust in the air, black energy permeates every street, smoke is rising from the rubble, and Rykz drones are visible everywhere his eyes turn.
At that moment, Fallone understands he must rush to gather every mounted soldier possible to send them into the outskirts so as to trim the Rykz like weed and relieve the Twelfth so he can work with the flow-smiths to counter the Rykz' runic construct.
He pushes his smoking, panging, wreck of a body to point the Count to a flag marking the position of the army's command center in the western plains. There will be time later to heal his flesh, Duke Fallone, General of Steso, consciously lies to himself.
--- --- ---
Marie's hands are trembling. She is leading a small delegation that represents their group of a little under forty runaways to speak to the hundred soldiers that found and intercepted them in the afternoon. Next to her is Hilda and one of the fishing village's elders.
She has no idea how things came to be this way, how so many peasants can be gathering behind them or how they could have been found so quickly. There aren't many hills in there plains but the terrain is uneven enough that they should have been able to travel at least a few days to the north before such a large group could catch up with them.
Neither Rowland nor Nahl had any explanation to offer her other than to say it was likely happenstance that so many gathered in the area. What none of them know is that a good portion of these soldiers were part of patrols that fled from the being in the north.
Marie somehow manages to maintain her composure as she approaches the two people who stepped forward of the lines. One is a woman with a large steel hammer at her back, the other is a man with a steel-tipped staff.
“Miss Marie, is it?” The woman asks.
“Yes.” Marie responds. “How should I call you?”
“Our names are of no significance.” The man utters. “And I would rather not lie nor have it spoken in relation to this event.”
“How courageous.” Marie utters in disgust.
“Work is work, the law is what it is.” The woman replies with a somber voice. “Just quietly come with us back to Meiridin before something dreadful happens.”
“...” Marie opens her mouth to protest, to buy time, but then pauses when she spots a soldier with bandages on his left hand, and then another with a fresh cut in his cheek, and then two with pale cheeks, and then four holding their spiked weapons with trembling hands. “Dreadful? For who?” She asks with a dazed expression. “It seems to me that your soldiers are... afraid.”
“No matter how good Freepath is, she cannot fight a hundred by herself while injured.” The man utters sharply.
The mention of their protector's injury shakes Marie but she quickly dismisses their words as lies to pressure them. She pats the kitchen knife at her belt and straightens her spine to show the example.
“We could help her, we have fifty here.” She says, full of bravado.
“Twelve exhausted mothers with newborn to take care of and a bunch of scrawny fishers.” The woman dismisses. “A fight between us would be a mistake neither of us wants to happen.”
“Perhaps, but we will not be going back with you. We did not escape the institute's jail to be thrown into another!” Marie snaps with determination and leaves before the shaking in her legs causes her to either give up or fall.
The man and woman, mercenaries for Nobility in all but name, look at each other rather than at the retreating delegation. They do not know how to handle this, their area of expertise involves ambushing 'bandits' or 'retrieving' coin with hoods from high born with too much greed.
“We can wait and force her to fight us here, after all our priority is to capture or kill Jessica Freepath.” The man suggests.
“Indeed, but...” The woman hesitates. “I would feel better if we had hostages to make her surrender peacefully.”
“The Chancellor was clear in his orders, and the Queen even clearer. Of all the runaway, this group must be taken back apparently unharmed.” The man says. “We can encircle them and club a few to take them away.”
“I'm done after this mission.” The woman mutters. “I'd rather join the Red Spears if these are the kinds of tasks we're going to be sent on in the future.”
“They followed the King to Telnur.” The man notes.
“Better the Lisilese than this Freepath. The way she dealt with my hammer... no wonder it's said she can fight Elizabeth Vil to a standstill.” The woman shudders at the memory of the wild stories that recently spread through Meiridin from Izla Meria.
“You can't rely on a sailor's tale, they all brag.” The man dismisses.
“If even half is true, we'll lose a quarter of our soldiers to put her down.” The woman murmurs. “When will the Count who fought her arrive?”
“Tomorrow, I've been told.” The man replies. “Likely with Templars.”
“Shit, just what we need.” The woman swears. “What did they tell them to leave the Temple, aren't there barely a dozen left in Meiridin?”
“I'm half-way certain the Order simply showed up at the Palace, the Chancellor simply did what he could to pin the entire disaster on Freepath.” The man says nervously.