The Cadaver Crasher descended through the atmosphere at a slow, deliberate pace, care of the dark energy manipulating the ship's mass and speed. The Administrator initially protested Morwen’s request to land, citing that the Federation has removed her of command. It was only when she’d communicated that she’d executed LT. Rayshe for insubordination and treason that the Administrator relented. She was certain he would protest the matter with the Federation’s command. She didn’t want to imagine the backlash she’d face over that decision, but she’d make it again if she had to. The primary screen showed the cloud cover thickening suddenly, and she had to recheck to see if there was any storm activity. The systems showed all green. She sensed the cloud cover was magical, fueled by water energy nearby. That meant a potential wellspring, but if there was, it was being warded very well. Morwen tapped a finger to her cheek thoughtfully as the ship continued its slow, controlled descent. The locals apparently called the thick, near stormlike clouds over the Sorrow of Hidros. If it involved a god or goddess, they may not know how close to the truth they actually were.
Perhaps Ominek had come for the well to siphon its power. Finding it and breaking through its shields would take time, and a ritual most likely that would consume yet more time given the multi-faceted magic required. Since she wasn’t detecting the well of energy yet, she assumed that time was still on their side, but she didn’t expect having much of it to spend. Ominek had a large head start on them.
She located a small town outside of the capital city and set down there. She wanted to avoid landing in the Capital in case they bound the Administrator to Ominek. That meant landing amid an ambush. Setting down outside meant she’d be choosing to engage the Sauridius on her own terms. A welcome change for a start. She staged her forces at the ready in the hangar bays. The Crasher could deploy spell fighters, but since she lacked trained mage pilots, it was just easier using the space to house the marines, armor, ammunition and the mages.
The ship rocked violently, and she changed the view on the screen to display the ground below the ship. Sauridius forces were hurling heavy weapons fire up at the Crasher’s belly. The ventral mounted point defense rail guns all swiveled into action. Thankful for the solid ammunition firing weapons gifted by the Brotherhood. The ammunition they were firing comprised enchanted ferrous slugs made of mythril steel that she’d got from the Order of Aeryn via her transaction.
She fed the ship the command, and the guns all opened fire. Below the Crasher, hell descended on the Sauridius forces. The terrain exploded upwards in clouds of debris strewn with crimson and black carnage. Some dragons took flight to avoid the salvos. She saw a few rounds make contact, and the dragons fell back, leaving their Hatchlings, Orcs and undead ground forces at the mercy of the ship as it descended to a landing. The Crasher rocked as it settled its bulk down on the massive landing struts. Morwen got up and made her way to the hangar bay where the mages stood at the front, the marines and tanks behind them. She took her position and Akamori fell in next to her.
“Sir, everyone’s ready.”
“Let’s go say hello then.”
He gave her a firm nod as his body went rigid during a salute, then he flew off to the rest of the mages. Morwen turned and marched towards the command tank, LT. Fennex’s. She executed several water and soul signs to trigger the abjuration spell to drop the barrier field of the hangar. Then gave the hand signal to advance. The Mages took off as the marines roared out of the hangar with the tanks moving along their flanks. She gave no orders and wasted no time on speeches. They all knew the stakes and the odds. It was simply time to act now.
The marines opened fire as soon as they could, and the tank's cannon bucked one at a time down the line. She watched the mages do a strafing run against the enemy ranks in the rear, pinching them between the assault. It wasn’t enough to beat her forces. Just enough to slow them down, and she was keenly aware of the time they were having to waste in dealing with the threat. Ominek’s delaying actions were proving both tedious and frustrating. But she had to deal with them unless she wanted to rush ahead blindly and leave a large enemy force at her back.
Akamori flew wearing the specially crafted gold armor that Kusinaki had secured for him as part of their trade with the Order. She could make out his outline as he dashed into a crowd of Orcs. His blade danced from target to target, spilling black blood. It made Morwen think more of an artistic performance than a combat being played out. The thought crashed into shards as the rest of her mages swept through, supporting the spell warriors' charge. Magic missiles being fired from rifles and pistols as they flew in a wedge formation at Akamori’s six.
“Stay tight, company,” Akamori said over the mage's channel.
“Understood,” Yasiin said.
“Understood, SIR.” The SGT. corrected sternly. “I swear to all hells, I will break my foot off in all your asses if you don’t start addressing him with the proper rank.”
The chatter both amused and pleased Morwen. They were gelling as an accomplished fighting force.
“I’m not calling him Sir, SGT.”
Sirsir stopped his attack and turned to loom over Sala. In response, the primal retracted his armor to the hips, and the legs up to the knee. The plates of enchanted mythril steel all folding into each other until the primal’s crimson haired torso, arms, and legs were bare. Then Sala’s skin hardened and turned the color of shale. A brilliant golden aura then exploded from him and his size grew several times. He now loomed over the big SGT. But Sirsir didn’t flinch, staring the primal down.
“Sala, go smash me some Orcs please,” Akamori said over the channel, and the primal nodded, then flew off to crash into a large green orc's head on in an animal roar.
“It ain’t good lettin’ him be insubordinate, sir. Gotta maintain discipline.”
“He’s fine, SGT. Stay focused on the fight. We can drill comportment later.”
“Understood sir.”
The battle wrapped up with Sala and Akamori, pinching the rear flank of the enemy as the Marines and tanks ground the front into corpses. The marines finished what remained of the broken undead forces. A crushed serpent here, or a wildcat there. Anything the shacklers could kill of the local flora and fauna to quickly bind. She looked on with admiration. If she’d commanded a force like this on Kofex and Tohruun, she might have been able to turn the tide. But she didn’t enjoy dwelling in the past. She gave the marines orders to secure the perimeter and conduct a rounds count and rearm. After that task completed, she ensured she left them orders to relax as best they could while maintaining guards. She was going to take Akamori with her and visit the nearby village.
Akamori fell in next to her as she strolled casually to the village next to the battlefield. He gave her a few sidelong glances but said nothing. “Speak your mind, Lt.” she said with a half-amused smile.
He shook his head, uncertainty coloring his expression. “It’s just, you look bothered. I’d have thought you’d be more pleased with how swiftly we secured the LZ.”
She gave him an honest half smile. “I am. But something troubles me.”
“How easy it was?”
She nodded. “So felt as much too then.”
“Yeah. There was just enough to slow us down, but not enough to overwhelm or defeat us. This wasn’t like my homeworld. They’re using a different playbook this time.”
Her suspicion about the well and its warded shield came to mind. “They’re stalling. Ominek is after something that is going to take him time to gain and he’s doing everything he can to milk as much time from us as possible.”
“So why not gun right for him, then?”
She clutched her hands behind her back as they walked. “And what do you suppose would happen then?”
He frowned. “Well, it would expose our rear, which isn’t ideal. But if we know we’re on a time crunch, isn’t it worth the risk?”
“Possibly.” She nodded, having come to the same puzzling cross roads herself. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it? To see your enemy's strategy but not having an adequate response of your own.”
He huffed, “Yea. How do you get around that?”
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She pursed her lips thoughtfully as they traced a path along a worn stone sidewalk that led into the town. “Well, there are few options. You could spend men and resources for time. Rush into Ominek’s plans, leaving your rear flank exposed. But we both know realistically what happens there. What else does that leave us with?”
“Well, we don’t know enough about what he’s up to. If we could do some recon and sniff out a more accurate idea of what he’s doing, we might develop some straightforward method of fouling up his plans. But doing that could consume time we may not have.”
“So you have one choice that spends lives for time. And the other spends time for potentially saved lives. Which choice would you make?”
He frowned. “This sounds like a question my father would ask.”
She nodded, the corner of her lip rising into a near smile. “Your father sounds wise, then. So. Which’ll it be?”
She stopped to face him, putting him on the spot to answer.
He pursed his lips, thinking on it for a moment. She watched his eyebrows move with his thoughts and moods. Shifting as they sorted data and ruled out conclusions. His father had groomed him well. Reflecting on that, it was almost like they had shaped him for this battle. Finally he spoke up, “Well, if we rushed in, we’d be going in tactically ignorant. The cost could be too steep, and we might give up any chance of victory hastily. So my vote goes to spending time to sniff out what it is he’s up to or after. Then we might be better prepared to move on him.”
She nodded and patted him on the shoulder plate approvingly. “A wise call. And one I’ve already made.”
“You couldn’t have just said that to begin with?”
She shrugged, “I could have. But you might not have learned a valuable lesson either. Part of being a leader is more than just giving commands in battle. It’s being able to read a situation and see your actions playing out before you’ve made them in order to make the best call you can. This is as much intellect as it is instinct. Your father gave you the core guidance on this. Which pleases me, as I don’t have to groom you from nothing. Lt. Fennex and the Sgt. were right to choose you. Come, let’s go reconnoiter the town and this world.”
He fell in beside her as they entered the town. There was a very specific person she wanted to find. Most colonies like these kept a library of records. Their own histories. They usually found an elder as the guardian of such knowledge. That would be their best bet for gathering information. After asking around a bit, the locals directed them to the Archive building. It was an unassuming square shaped concrete structure that had a scroll logo next to the word “Historian” on a sign.
Stepping inside, Morwen found an elderly man in a plain white robe with blue stripes, and a pair of small circular lensed glasses perched on his nose. He had bushy grey eyebrows, and a bald scalp rimmed with wiry white hair. He glanced up from a parchment he’d been reading to regard her and Akamori as they stepped inside.
“Well. It’s rare we get visitors here. How can I help?”
“I’m Captain Morwen of the Mage Federation, and this is my XO, Lt. Akamori. We’ve come seeking knowledge and aid.”
The man smiled, bowing his head in greeting to them, “I’m Perthran, the local historian for this world.”
“Why not stay in the capital?” Morwen asked.
The old man offered a simple shrug with a smile. “I like the quiet here. It makes reading easier.”
He gestured for them to come inside, and the door shut, ringing a small bell placed above the door. It smelled of musty paper and old leather inside. Morwen immediately liked it in here. It reminded her of some older libraries on Eryn. Storing knowledge had long since shifted from writing on scrolls and books to using magic to enchant magical items, often on a dragon scale, though they’d also have several Pheonix feathers and tons of Gryphon feathers as well. But here? This library contained nothing but ancient parchments and texts, and she relished the smell of the ancient tomes. There was no magic in these books and scrolls. Just the transcriptions of men and women from throughout the planet’s history. She appreciated that simplicity, and it lent the library a quaint familiarity.
“You look like a kid in a candy shop.”
She turned to face Akamori, who’d given an amused sidelong glance. She shrugged indifferently. “I actually prefer scholarly study over combat. Unfortunately, I’m good at them both.”
“Well then, since you’re an accomplished study, what can I help you learn today?” Perthran asked.
Morwen nodded down to business then. “We’re here looking for legends, myths, and anything between alluding to a massive source of magical power or a powerful artifact of some type.”
Perthran nodded, gesturing for them to follow him around several tables that had many opened books piled on them haphazardly. Dust had accumulated on the top layer on several tables, and Morwen smiled. Perthran led them into a large circular room with shelves that went right to the ceiling. Small lanterns rimmed large wooden frames, casting the room in a soft yellow glow. The light gleamed softly off of Perthran’s bald pate and reflected gently in his spectacles. The elderly historian scanned over the shelves, muttering titles in a hushed whisper to himself.
Morwen hung in the doorway with Akamori at her side, watching the old man search for his desired books. Finally Perthran jumped with excitement as he gently fished a leather-bound book from the shelf and turned to hand it off to her. “This is a good place to start. When the colony was founded, the early settlers all reported finding cave paintings.”
Perthran pulled a small table for two over from the center of the room, gesturing for Morwen to sit and open the book, so she did as instructed. Perthran gingerly leafed through the book, taking great care not to be too rough with each page. Morwen was certain a few might just crumble to dust in the old man’s hands. But the way he moved, and the way he handled each page as though it were delicate pottery, reflected his skill at his job and just how long he’d been the library's ward. Finally, he reached a page that had several drawings and he pointed.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at these,” he started, then stood up from the table to fish something else off the shelf and opened it up to leaf to a page that contained another drawing of the night sky. But this image didn’t match the one in the first book. “At first we thought maybe the constellations in these caves were just different because of stellar drift, but there're no similarities at all. No anchor points.”
“They’re two different skies.”
Perthran nodded, pointing to the first image, “These were found in the caves of this world and on some flat facing mountain sides.” Pointing to the second image, “And this is what our historians observed their first night here.”
Morwen’s brow furrowed, “So if the skies don’t match the paintings, what does that mean?”
Perthran smiled, “Well, most of us have speculated that they are a different night sky the world used to occupy.”
Morwen leaned back, blinking, “You’re saying someone moved a planet?”
Perthran shrugged casually, “Not with certainty. It’s just a speculation. But it’s a good guess to explain the differences. Why paint a sky that doesn’t match your own?”
A hidden world, with a hidden well. Someone went to great pains to keep someone from discovering this planet and its magic, but she still did not know where that magic was, or whom it belonged to.
“I’m understanding a little more about this world, but I need more. Do you have anything regarding legends of great magic?”
Perthran scanned through the book that held the mismatching night sky drawing in it. He paused on a drawing of a massive craggy ridge that fell down into a deep bowl. Above it a dark ominous cloud and torrential rain. “It’s the never ending storm. We call it the Sorrow of Hidros. Most of the cave paintings we could find all showed a grand tragedy took place on this world, and the storm defies all logic. The first settlers noted the storm ignored all other meteorological patterns. Even when the rest of the world bathed in sunlight and clear skies, the Sorrow still stormed. It was soon after named the Sorrow of Hidros because it reminded the early settlers of a weeping widow and ignored all reason.”
“How did it come to be called Hidros?”
Perthran smiled and pointed at her proudly, “That’s an excellent question.”
Perthran leafed through the text some more, settling on a drawing of a cave painting that had faded with time. “Much of our technology during the early colonization was applied to life support and infrastructure so we didn’t have something to photograph everything we found. The first historian used to be an artist with an eye for remembering things, so he’d spend his days drawing what he found while everyone else went about their jobs. He felt it was important to catch everything he could before time claimed what little there was that remained of the first civilization here. This image here depicted what he thought was their deity.”
Perthran pointed to the drawing. The faded image scrawled on the cave wall showed a dark blue beast that stood atop a world. The upper half of the artwork had eroded away or faded due to chip paint. It was difficult to say for certain the cause, but the result looked that way. Morwen squinted and leaned back. She turned to Akamori pointing to the drawing.
“Remind you of anything?”
He flinched, clearly letting his mind wander as she busied herself with the academic work, “uh..” He leaned down to squint at the drawing for a moment then shook his head, his long red mane shifting left and right.
“The rear looks like a dragon, maybe? Can’t say for certain, though. The tops too faded.”
“A god then, like Sauridius perhaps. It died here?”
Perthran nodded, “That’s the speculation. Those that worshiped him named the planet in his honor. They unfortunately died out because of cataclysmic planetary events. Eventually the world stabilized and then we settled here.”
“Cataclysmic?” Morwen asked, wondering if her goal was indeed a powerful artifact or weapon of some type.
“Very much so. The storm hovers above a massive wound in the planet's surface. Something happened in there that uprooted the crust in such a way that only a detonation or collision could achieve. Violent catastrophic ecosystem collapse ensued in the aftermath.”
Morwen frowned. Great. And this is exactly the kind of thing that Ominek would be after.
“We can’t let whatever caused this to fall into the Sauridius’ hands. If Ominek gets this weapon, history may wind up repeating itself yet again.”
Perthran smiled, but looked tired. “Then if that’s the case, perhaps some future seekers of the truth may discover this library and pick through what survives, looking to glean something to prevent a similar calamity that we face now.”
Morwen stood, tugging her jacket down tightly, smoothening it out. “Not on my watch. Akamori, return to camp. Prep the troops to move. We’ll need to pass through the capital before we hit the Sorrow. Ensure the marines have their wet weather gear packed and prepped.”
“Good luck Captain. Should you need me, you know where to find me.”
Morwen offered the man a respectful bow. The gravity of the situation weighing down on her now that she had a better idea of what she was looking to prevent. This wasn’t just a typical colony attack like the other raids. Ominek had to be stopped or Hidros would enter its second extinction cycle far sooner than it had any right to.
“Thank you, Perthran. We’ll need all the luck we can manage.”