The damp air of the tunnel clung to their skin as the soldiers huddled together. Dim glowstone lights flickered as a tremble ran through the ground. At the center of the group stood Eadric, the unit’s seasoned hypeman. His voice was a steady beacon amidst the low murmur of anticipation. His words pulsed like the beat of a drum, charging the air with energy. Soldiers, gripping their weapons, nodded along, their fear transmuting into a steely resolve.
Eadric moved among them, clasping shoulders and meeting eyes. He knew his presence was a tangible reassurance. A reassurance they needed. Even as an experienced warrior, one of the King’s men who had fought in seven different battles for the realm, served in a mercenary company for over a decade, and possessed more accolades than any two others in the entire army, he had seen things here that he could never have imagined. Monsters of all varieties, massive walking buildings, and flying ships to name a few. And they hadn’t even encountered the enemy yet.
That was soon to change.
War was upon them. Quite literally. In a few minutes, they would burst forth from the ground, assailing the Evestani invaders from the rear. Some, those inexperienced, called it a cowardly move not to face them head-on. Eadric called it smart. Only bards cared about honor. For everyone else, it was life or death.
They would understand. They would understand or they would die.
“Ready men!” a call rang through the tunnels.
Eadric let his own words fall silent as he turned.
Prince Cedric’s commander held a large copper cone in front of his mouth, projecting his voice through the tunnel. Eadric wasn’t sure what to think of the man. A pompous sort like him who clearly got his position out of kinship more than ability normally grated on Eadric’s nerves, yet the man was the head of the army, fully ready to be the first to charge into battle. Whether he had a death wish or was just ignorant of the brutality they would face in a few minutes, Eadric couldn’t decide. If anything, he wished the man would move back.
He wasn’t well-liked among the soldiers, but if the banner the commander carried fell, it would harm morale.
“Tonight, we bathe in the blood of our enemies! Tomorrow, we dance upon their corpses. Huzzah!”
Eadric expected more, but Mags was finished. He tossed the copper cone aside, whipped his horse’s hindquarters, and shot off out of the tunnel. He was the first into the daylight. The first to meet the enemy.
Probably the first to die.
Eadric could only shake his head before echoing the cry. With any luck, Mags would die with the majority of the army none the wiser. It would only be after the fact that anyone would realize they had trampled over his body in the opening minutes of the engagement.
The army surged forward, following after Mags. It was divided up, split between a few different exits to the tunnels so that they might better encircle Evestani, getting the drop on them from all sides with the element of surprise.
Eadric stepped out into the sun, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. He didn’t stop moving. He knew his role. His own banner hung from his back, rallying his men. He was here to be seen, to bolster everyone. He couldn’t be seen to falter or waver. Heavy armor-crushing mace gripped in one hand and his shield on his other arm, he waded forward.
Evestani’s army stood in the distance. Most still had their backs facing the oncoming battle. Siege weapons, bombardment magics, and all manner of spellwork had been set up as far from the front as possible. That left them open to be the first to go down. Spellcasters normally wanted as much heavy armor and shields between them and conflict as possible. Coming up behind them like this would rip away the advantage of magic from Evestani.
It wouldn’t be an easy battle, but compared to some of his engagements? Evestani still outnumbered them. That said, Eadric could get used to fighting like this. Spellcasters were often the most troublesome part of a proper army.
In the distance, dwarfing the mass of soldiers, a giant sphere of swirling wind raged amid a forest. With the sun angled just right, he could almost make out the silhouette of the walking building that his army chased across the land. Floating above it, one ship somehow hovered in the air while a second metal monster lingered in the air nearby. The latter looked like some kind of creature with a wide, gaping maw and thin tendrils dangling down below it. If not for the metal hull, he might have thought it was a monster.
And a second monster was drifting overhead, moving to join the first two flying ships.
Eadric pulled his gaze back down as the clash in front of him began. There was no time to pay attention to anything else.
Trails of blood arced through the air as Eadric pulled his mace back. The stubby spikes were made to break armor. Bones couldn’t hold up. He bashed one fleeing caster straight down his spine, hearing that crack over the yells, shouts, and clashing metal. A magical array of unknown intent dimmed and faded as the maintainers fell or fled. He let out a shout of his own, indistinct among the cries of his comrades, doing nothing but hyping up his unit as they charged.
Chaos amid the blood, dirt, and bodies reigned. A whirlwind swirled around him, threatening to rip him off his feet. One of his unit shoved a pike through the caster’s head, freeing him to bash down someone’s skull who was conjuring up a wall of ice to buy time.
The first armored opponent charged at Eadric with a stubby straight sword, swinging as if he had never used it before. Eadric batted it away with his shield, using the opening to thrust his mace forward into the chest of the soldier. The metal chestplate dented. That alone wouldn’t have been enough, but it knocked the soldier off balance. A second strike to the side of the head and a third to the man’s shield arm elicited that cracking of breaking bones along with a pained scream as the soldier went down. Another follow-up strike to the helmet made the man still.
Eadric didn’t stop. Even as he bashed down the soldier, his eyes roamed around, seeking his next target. A caster was giving one of his men a hard time. A row of hastily assembled archers were readying their bows. More soldiers were moving forward, disorganized and erratic.
He took a single step.
Bright golden light flooded his vision. Eadric reared back, raising his shield as a distant heat washed over him, soaking into his armor. He blinked as fast as he could, trying to regain his vision even as he kept his shield up and pointed at where he thought the enemy was.
He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t hurt. Whatever that had been, it hadn’t been aimed toward him.
Fearing the worst, he quickly looked around the moment he could see more than spots.
Everyone was in a similar state. Not just his army, but Evestani’s as well. Everyone was cowering, waiting, as if they expected that to have been an attack from an enemy. There wasn’t even any noise. The only one moving, Eadric noted, was Mags. Seeing the portly man slam his fist through the helmet of some Evestani soldier, smiling with a toothy grin on his face, made him wonder if he wasn’t seeing things.
Nobody seemed hurt beyond the momentary blindness. Eadric swung his mace, knocking aside some soldier who was still recovering, before realizing what had happened.
The tower was visible. The swirling maelstrom that had been protecting it was nowhere to be seen. A chunk of its smokey walls was covered in what appeared to be liquid gold, dripping down its sides.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The airships overhead, the monstrous ones, opened their mouths. Dozens of sacks of meat came spewing out, flying through the air toward the tower.
At the same time, flames erupted around the tower, swirling around as it moved up the sides of the walls. Some of the meat sacks burned away in an instant while others struck the tower, sticking to its bricks.
Arrows striking Eadric’s shield pulled his eyes back to the ground. One punctured deep enough to clip his arm. The pinch of pain wasn’t much, but it did make him hiss.
There was no time to worry about the tower. He had a war to win.
----------------------------------------
Lexa felt the hairs on her skin stand on end. An instant later, the tower rocked, tilting back far enough that she felt like she was going to go flying.
“Confirmed location of the avatar,” shouted one of the people hunched over the crystal ball. They weren’t disturbed at all by the sudden shock to the fortress. None even blinked. “Location displayed.”
Lexa didn’t have a clue who they were talking to. Arkk wasn’t here. He had rushed back to Fortress Al-Mir to get Agnete and her machines. The Protector loomed over their crystal balls. Maybe to distribute information to Rekk’ar who would then use more Protectors to order around other teams.
“External d-damage appears minimal—” another of the scrying team started as the image in the glass flickered.
“Incoming attacks from above. Egg drop!”
“Agnete is already outside, teleported by Arkk. Nothing to worry over.”
“The protective spell is down,” a fairy said, quickly changing the crystal ball to show somewhere inside the tower. Her face twisted into a grimace as it flickered to whatever else she needed to keep track of. “Looks like an explosion went off inside the ritual chamber. Kassa is down and Lelith looks like she got slammed against a wall. Backlash from the spell hitting the shield?”
“We’ll be vulnerable to sustained bombardment…”
“Where is Arkk?”
That was what Lexa wanted to know. He said he would only be gone for a minute, just long enough to get Agnete and her machines moving. The avatar had attacked. Now was the optimal time to enact their countermeasure against him and she was stuck sitting here, twiddling her thumbs. Agnete warranted a teleport out to take care of the eggs, meanwhile, that avatar was recovering.
Fate, or perhaps some Fickle Wheel, chose that moment to strike. The moment the thought crossed her mind, Lexa felt that tug that came with teleportation. Like someone picked her up by the scruff of her neck, whisked her through space, and dropped her off in a long, empty tunnel. Not having been expecting the teleport, Lexa stumbled slightly as she whipped her head around to get her bearings.
Arkk had not dropped her into the middle of combat. That let her relax ever so slightly. The tunnel she was in had two ways to go. One way narrowed to a small hole that not even a gremlin could fit into. A slime or one of the servants would be the only ones capable of traversing that route. The other way was an upward-leading ramp where the majority of the tunnel’s light came from.
With only one direction to go, Lexa didn’t need telling twice.
She quickly checked herself over, making sure she wasn’t missing anything. Her shadow cloak, wrapped loosely around her, fluttered in the faint breeze coming from the tunnel’s entrance. All her knives were in place in their holders—she withdrew two, one in each hand—the flower was still pinned to her shirt, and a small metal sphere engraved with runes hung from the belt on her hip. Within, the effigy sat, safe and contained for the moment.
A surge of doubt crossed through Lexa’s mind. It was the only effigy. She wasn’t sure if it was because another one couldn’t be made or if Zullie and the others had simply focused on perfecting this one, but its weight suddenly felt ten times what it had been a moment ago. If she failed, if she lost it, if it didn’t work…
Well, if any of those happened, she would probably end up dead. Then it wouldn’t be her problem anymore.
With a shake of her head, Lexa ascended the sloped path out of the tunnel.
War raged around her.
The tunnel’s exit led directly to a battle. Red and gold armored soldiers fought alongside blue and yellow against an army clothed in white, black, and gold. Metal clashed against metal. Spells flew overhead in both directions. People screamed as they were cut down. Soldiers stampeded over the bodies of the fallen, too frightened and too hyped up on adrenaline to think. Blood soaked into the ground as arrows thunked against armor, shields, and people.
Lexa had seen fighting before. She had been one of Katja’s bandits for around ten years. They raided caravans and killed people, even assaulted a small village one year for food and supplies. People bled out and died. Plenty at her own hand. With Arkk, she had seen plenty more. Between assassinating the Duke, Gleeful Burg, and reclaiming Elmshadow, she had seen her fair share of blood and death. But she had never been in the thick of a war. She had always been off on the side, targeting special objectives.
The scale of the battle before her couldn’t compare to everything else she had seen even if she combined all her experiences into one bloody lump. Tides of people clashed, dozens fell on both sides only to be replaced with more yelling and charging from the ones behind them.
Lexa had to dart and weave, using all her skills and even a few agility-enhancing spells to keep from being crushed underneath metal boots. It helped that she couldn’t stand around in a stupor. Being forced to move kept her active.
She narrowed her eyes, cursing her short height as she tried to figure out where her target might be. If Arkk dropped her off here, that meant the avatar should be somewhere nearby. White and gold, with a light brown thrown in, were the predominant colors of Evestani. Maneuvering around a clash between them and some of Vaales’ red and gold, she headed further into the Evestani line.
It wasn’t easy. Even with nobody paying attention to her thanks to her spells and cloak, the battlefield was packed. If she remembered right, Evestani marched with roughly ten thousand men. The King’s army was smaller, but it sure didn’t feel that way. Combined they formed a wall. Not just a wall—she could have gotten over a wall. It was a mass of swinging blades that extended outward in every direction, constantly moving back and forth. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to get anywhere.
Trees were standing. Evestani had set up their siege equipment in a relatively clear spot in the forest, but it wasn’t completely devoid of trees. Most fighters on both sides avoided them. At most, people used them as cover against the archers, but, from a short observation, most archers didn’t bother to aim their shots at trees when they could randomly arch their shot high into the air and likely hit someone.
Lexa kept a wary eye out for any golden arrows. The ones that turned people into living statues that then infected more people. So far, neither the statues nor the arrows were present. She wondered if it had something to do with the avatar. Although powerful enough to blast a hole into a mountain, he did not have infinite power. It took time to rebuild that power or else he would simply walk on his own, blasting down everything in his path with rays of gold. If maintaining or otherwise using those gold statues or arrows took some of that power, he might ignore it in favor of focusing on the tower.
Clinging to the side of a tree, Lexa flicked her eyes up. The tower stood in the distance, looking worse for wear. Smoke billowed out of one of the floors in the upper levels. The ritual room, probably. Fire wreathed the tower, trying to keep it clean of those meaty eggs the whale ships were spewing. Gold dripped down its sides where the ray had struck, seeming to snuff out the flames. All the while, the cannons of the airship didn’t let up, blasting off lesser servants in droves as they clung to the exterior, trying to repair the damage.
A black void opened, intercepting a few volleys of cannon fire and eggs. It flickered and collapsed before long. The small reprieve it bought did allow a few focused beams of fire to fry several of the eggs the larger wreath had missed.
Lexa forced her gaze back down. Dealing with that wasn’t her job. She had to find the avatar. She had to find the avatar before he gathered enough strength to strike the tower a second time.
Again, the Fickle Wheel thought it must be funny to coincide events with her thoughts. As soon as she turned her eyes back to the battlefield, a warm, golden aura spread out from the center of Evestani’s army. The tides of war below her shifted, with the King’s army pulling back in response to the unknown magics, readying themselves to defend from spells. Protective shields popped up all throughout their side of the battle. Evestani, on the other hand, found themselves bolstered. Everyone wearing their colors straightened, gripped their weapons with newfound strength, and raised their banners as they shouted war cries.
The clash began again as the light faded. This time, the side with the advantage was plain and obvious. Evestani’s forces still died. It wasn’t like they had become immortal or even gained any amount of strength. Lexa watched their blades clash with those of the King’s army. Nothing looked too different.
Had anything even happened? Was it pure morale that shifted the flow of battle? If Lexa were in the avatar’s position, she wouldn’t have bothered wasting power on her followers while her true target stood ahead, taunting in its very existence. But if a little trick of light was enough to turn a fighting retreat into a forward push, she would have thrown up a quick sparkle too.
Unfortunately for the avatar, her elevated position gave her the perfect vantage point to see where that light had originated from. She might not have long. The avatar wasn’t immobile, after all, and he might decide to swap possessed bodies at any point. But it was the best lead she had.
Scanning through the ocean of fighters below, she picked a route, keeping close to the more densely packed trees and far from the actual people. It would be a roundabout path, but one actually traversable compared to pushing through an active battle.
“I’m coming for you,” Lexa hissed as she hopped to the ground and took off in a sprint. “Just you wait…”