While making small talk with Collin and his team he noticed that Florian hadn’t been able to take his eyes of Miya. Jace grinned with a knowing look in his eyes and patted Florian on the shoulder with a wink. While pretending to be his normal self and joking around with his friends the unease spread throughout his heart as he distanced himself from the frontline. A feeling of wrongness settled inside him. He was not supposed to be here, there was battle up ahead and he should be in the thick of it.
He tried to throw the emotions off, he rolled his shoulder and Collin walked up to him. “Still the same soldier you always were. It was my greatest regret to see you quit because of that captain business.”
Jace looked over at him and shrugged. “I’m more than just a soldier.”
Collin smiled sadly, “Are you though? Both you and I are cut from the same cloth. There is battle up ahead and we should be in the thick of it, we feel it in our blood. We are restless in times of peace. Secretly when at home, when at peace you find yourself wishing for war. War, as chaotic and cruel as it can be. Is home to those like us, once we grow used to it normal life is… bothersome.”
Jace looked over at him with a frown, “Is that why you were so quick to jump on to the excuse of war?”
Collin rolled his shoulders, “Perhaps, from the moment we entered this new world I have been in a constant struggle to stay alive. Back home the fights were far between. It did not occur as often as I may have preferred. I toyed with the idea of becoming a mercenary for a while. Taking money to go into the thick of it wherever I could.”
Jace looked over at his old captain and then ran a finger over his sheath. He sighed, “I have a family now. I care more for them than anything, more than I thought was possible for me. Yet when the city came under attack by these monsters. There was fear, relief, anger. I’ve never felt this many emotions.”
Collin nodded, “Your love for your family clashes with your comfort on the fields of war. It is understandable you know. Many veterans go through the same thing, they lose the clear discipline of the army and the life threatening situations they were trained for. Then they come back home without either and have trouble adjusting. It’s not a career Jace, you know that. It’s a lifestyle.”
Jace reluctantly nodded, “I’m aware, first thing I did when I came here was learn to fight, the next thing I did was find new brothers in arms. He looked over to Weira and her team. Then I got the opportunity to become a knight, join and army once more. I missed my brothers, I dislike some of them, yet would die for any of them. It’s a bond that is hard to replace.”
Collin chuckled, “That it is, I was lucky to be sent here with my brothers. I would most likely not have survived otherwise. The place we arrived in was… Inhospitable. If it wasn’t for our heavy armament then we would most likely have died quickly. Some things here are naturally bulletproof. We agreed to not introduce guns into this world, despite John’s grumbles. Even the old fart thought it would be irresponsible to create guns here.”
Jace raised and eyebrow. “Then what is he creating that he would give up his precious guns.”
Collin laughed, “Magical firearms, there are already prototypes created by other people and he would not have to rely on the knowledge from back home. An entirely new field of destruction for him to discover. I haven’t seen him this happy in a decade to be honest.”
Jace joined the man in his laughter, “I can imagine he would enjoy having all these new ideas to experiment with. Just make sure he doesn’t create anything nuclear. That would be bad, can you imagine what would happen if magical beasts started mutating because of radiation?” He fake shivered.
Collin smirked, “You mean you’d get even more things to kill?”
Jace grinned, “Well if you say it like that, perhaps I should help the old man.”
Collin shook his head, “The two of you were a nightmare to the rest of us. John coming up with his crazy modifications and you eagerly testing them.”
Jace smirked, “You have no appreciation for the art of murder my dear friend.”
As the two bickered and reminisced over old times the day passed and night fell before Jace was rotated back in the front, surprisingly the sand walkers had wanted a chance to be the frontline and had been given the fourth rotation. The army started setting up camp and preparing dinner. While they could eat on the march it was anything but comfortable, if they wanted to keep their strength up they needed at least some proper rest.
Jace sat around a makeshift campfire, the fire created by magic to be smokeless. Something he wasn’t quite sure was physically possible but he chalked it up as one of many strange things on this new planet. Surrounding this smokeless fire was Weira and her team, Vivianna, Arian, Lily, Collin and Miya. Collin frowned and looked over at Jace, “Don’t you think that these Dravu have been acting strange?”
Jace nodded, “These waves they keep sending at us, I can’t help but feel they are using stalling tactics. I already told the marshal of my thoughts and he was of a similar mind. He made sure that the camp is sturdy and well protected. Although anything could happen regardless of the preparations.
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Jace and Collin both felt like something was off and the others trusted their instincts. Despite the already heavy patrols and magical scrying spells that were put in place to detect ambushes they still set up a guard schedule for the night.
Jace volunteered to take the third shift, one of the worst ones. He didn’t need as much sleep as the others, neither did Collin so he took the second to last shift. Jace went to sleep and a few hours later he was woken up by Lily who nodded to him to take his shift. Jace groggily stood up and sat on one of the improv chairs created by Weira with a bit of earth magic. His shield was still ever-present on his arm. Carmine had curled up around their camp, functioning as a wall of flesh and scales that separated their camp from those around them.
Not with any specific purpose in mind it was just that she was so large that she got in the way so Jace had told her to simply curl around the camp a couple times. He smiled gently and ran a hand over her smooth and cool scales. Carmine lifted her head and her tongue shot out and tickled Jace. He chuckled softly and patted her skin. He sat down and sharpened his sword. He’d already done so before he went to sleep but he did it again and checked the weapon for damage regardless. Keeping your equipment in top condition was a prerequisite for a soldier if he wanted to survive.
A shift in the dirt caused Jace to jump to full alert. His eyes shot over the tunnel walls looking for more of the disturbance. Carmine felt his action and sat up slightly, some other warriors who were still awake sat up curiously and looked at the duo. When they saw how Jace stood ready for combat and his eyes were on the walls, they stood up and looked around with grim faces. The dirt shifted on another side and this time all those who were awake noticed.
“ALARM!” A mage suddenly shouted, “They are coming through the walls! ENEMY ATTACK!”
With his words chaos descended upon the camp. Most of the warriors had slept in their armour, despite the discomfort. They jumped upright with sleepy eyes, weapons at the ready. The walls burst open as a type of creature he had never seen before burst from the walls. Jace’s eyes widened, these were dravu but different from any others he had seen before. They had skin like a chameleons and their movements were swift and jerky.
Their eyes glowed somewhat when reflecting the fire, but otherwise the creatures were harder to see. Carmine coiled up and shot forward and bit down on one of the creatures, dragging it from the wall. The creatures screeched in anger and they jumped down to attack, Jace immediately sent his blood shields towards everyone in range. Weira jumped up beside him and glyphs were flying around the tunnel, Plip was firing arrows as fast as he could. Jace and the other melee oriented fighters dove into the nearest fight that they could find. Florian and Vivianna stayed back to protect Qyra and Plip while the rest of them strode into the melee.
Lily was rushing towards anyone who was wounded and used her limited healing magic to stabilise the warriors. People were collapsing around them, some without even coming into contact with the new dravu species. Jace frowned and then his eyes widened, “POISON GAS! Wind mages blow it away from us!”
Wind mages started desperately casting spells to blow the poison away, it was taking too long. Warriors were dropping left and right, Jace felt the world sway as the poison entered his veins, he cursed and forced himself to attack the nearest enemy. Collin walked up next to him, and took a deep breath in. Then he roared and the air around them displaced, a wind rushed through the tunnels that pushed the poison away from them. Warriors who were still capable of movement rushed towards their nearest downed allies in a desperate attempt to protect them.
Carmine dove from one group of the camouflaged dravu to the next, tearing them apart in vicious anger. Jace fought on but felt his body grow weaker, the poison was affecting him. He stumbled and raised his shield just in time to protect himself from a claw, a yellow streak rushed past him and cut through the creature.
Jace looked through blurry eyes and recognized the yellow armour that was Miya. She stepped towards him and her lips pressed against his, his eyes widened and he wanted to stop her out of reflex. Instead of kissing him he felt a suction and he collapsed to his knees and coughed. He blinked and his eyes regained their clarity, he stared after Miya who had already run off and sucked the poison from the nearest warrior she could find, who mirrored the same wide-eyed stare that Jace must have on his face.
Miya moved over to Collin and did the same, Jace was pretty sure that she took slightly more time to use it on Collin than the others. Jace rolled his eyes as he cut through another of the creatures, it seems the two of them really were in a relationship despite their protests. The fight was intense but did not last very long three minutes at most. The ambush had caused a lot of damage however. The warriors with weaker vitality and lower levels collapsed quickly under the poison smoke. Some of the lowest levels had even died because of it.
Jace furrowed his brows as he looked across the dead and dying, he looked over at Collin and indicated with his chin that they should head towards the command tent. Collin nodded and the two of them started walking towards the leaders. Miya stayed with the soldiers, moving from soldier to soldier to suck out the poison wherever she could.
Jace looked over at Collin with a smirk, “Your future wife is kissing a lot of people at the moment.”
Collin rolled his eyes, “She’s not my future wife, and she’s not kissing anyone. She’s using one of her skills. She might look like any other elf but she is this weird mutated elf variant called a Velf. Which has some kind of poison chemicals in their body or whatever, I’m not too clear on the details.”
Jace looked over at the woman, “She will save a lot of people with that ability of hers. More importantly, this ambush and these dravu we have no information on. This was planned.”
Collin made a growling sound deep in his throat. “You think these dravu lured us in to ambush us and kill off the warriors that are a threat so that they have free reign over the city and the surrounding area.”
Jace nodded, “If this horde is being led by something that can strategize then we are in for a world of hurt, step one was the ambush. It shook us up, things are not going according to plan and revealing a new species is bound to spread panic amongst our ranks. Step two would be cutting of our supply line, they might try to collapse the tunnels behind us.”
Collin furrowed his brows, “If we get caught in these tunnels without supplies, we only have enough to last us a week. Shouldn’t they have waited till we are deeper in?”
Jace tapped his chin as he upped his pace, “Maybe not, what if they attacked the supply camp. There aren’t many combatants, and they may or may not have made it back to the city. If they then proceed to collapse as much of the tunnels as they can it will take us perhaps a week to make our way back through the tunnels. If they attack us while we try to return our losses will multiply. If they also attack our supplies…”
Jace’s eyes widened as he froze, he looked over at Collin, “What if their target of this ambush wasn’t us but our supplies!”
Collin paled and both started running towards the command tent, they entered to here on of the alliance of state generals say. “We lost a few men in this attack, most of them were lower level soldiers. All in all our combat power hasn’t been lowered too much. The new dravu species is a surprise to be sure but not something that will heavily impact our plans.”
Jace spoke up as the man finished his statement. “What about our supplies!” Jace smashed his hands on the table, “Did they target the supplies!?”
The queen looked up with a frown, and the marshal raised a disapproving eyebrow. “Jace this is the command tent, you technically do not have the right to be here.”
Collin walked in behind Jace and folded his arms, “He’s with me. More importantly answer the questions, did they hit our supplies?”
“Just a moment.” The elven queen said as she used some magical messaging system to get in touch with the quartermaster. She frowned once she got her answer. “It seems a good chunk of our supplies were indeed destroyed, there was a good amount of food poisoned as well. It will take some effort to cleanse them.”
Jace turned to Collin and both had a grim look on their faces, “We are in trouble, set up defenses and count the supplies, we need scouts to check behind us.”
The marshal frowned and looked at Collin, “What is the matter.”
Collin put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “We underestimated the enemy.”