Chapter 247 - Scorching Embers V

It was on the fourth evening that the enemy finally made their move. They began with an obvious march, a procession in which a number of troops were led down the street, dressed in full ceremonial garb. There were hundreds of men, each walking in line with the next, regardless of the load they bore. The average soldier only carried his armaments, but there was a group at the front that led with instruments, a collection of bards that marked their presence with a bright, wartime song. The city’s residents were caught off guard by the unannounced event, but they stepped aside regardless and allowed the army to proceed, all while debating the sudden parade and its meaning.

“A bard unit? That’s unusual,” muttered Claire.

It was not a lack of efficacy that rendered the element unlikely. Bards were incredibly useful in group combat, courtesy of their ability to bolster their allies and weaken their enemies. And unlike other similar classes, like curse mages, they incurred no penalty to perform on a larger scale. They were in high demand across all such situations, and that was precisely why so few found themselves flying the military’s banner. The army lacked the prestige and freedom that many of their other possibilities would have provided. One could not simply play a tune of self-expression, nor serenade whatever lovely dame or damsel whose path they happened to cross; the military’s members were expected to play the tunes instructed to them with zero room for creativity or improvisation.

The discipline required for such a unit to function was not the sort that the typical bard was willing to endure, for they were free spirits that roamed the land and focused their eyes on little but the things they wished to see. To wander for inspiration was the way of their forefathers, the way that the divine collective came to be—the holy blob was but an amalgamation of the countless spirits of all the best artists, dancers, and songwriters. And it was not by fame that the collective judged. Anyone that had produced a true masterpiece in their lifetime was taken into it post mortem. And it was precisely to craft such beauty and seek the subsequent eternity that bards often took upon themselves the traveler’s mantle. That was not to say that most wanderers were minstrels. To sing was but one way to fight, and a choir alone did not a functional party make.

Most singers and writers, especially those realistic enough to acknowledge their lack of talent, would eventually settle down in some town or other, but even then, the government remained an unlikely employer. They went to taverns, opera houses, and noble manors instead, composing commissions for the individuals that took to their particular brands and genres. And yet, the Vel’khanese had somehow put together a unit.

They numbered forty in all, drummers, trumpeters, and lutanists making up the main body. The commander, an important-looking, uniformed lady with a golden harp was sitting atop one of the carriages, lightly strumming it as she sang an ode of promised victory. No magic was laced into her song just yet, but it came attached with a fiery fervor regardless, a shroud of confidence backed by the band’s very presence. One did not simply send such valuable soldiers to a losing battle.

Claire’s half drowsy mind snapped awake as she looked towards the warriors marching behind the band. They were split into two clear divisions, one with five full platoons, and the other with exactly one soldier to its name. From an aesthetic perspective, it was absurd, comical even, but she was no stranger to the unspoken declaration. The lone man, the erdbrecher covered from head to toe in glimmering golden trinkets, was worth as much as the hundreds that marched by his side. Or perhaps even more.

Though it was difficult to tell with all the jewelry plastered over his frame, the elephant-nosed warrior was practically naked. He had a cloth to cover his loins, but his chest was bare. No weapons hung off his hips, nor were any holstered to his back. The skin that adorned his weathered humanoid parts was just as wrinkled as that of his elephantine face, and though not quite the same colour, it was also ashy and grey. The faded hair all over his arms suggested that he was nearing the end of his prime, but his musculature showed no signs of degradation. His stomach was marked with undeniable muscle, and his legs were as thick and sturdy as the trunk of a tree. His veins were clearly visible throughout his frame, bulging with vigour. Most impressive of all, however, were his eyes. Within them raged the continence of a triumphant ruler, of a man whose confidence was backed by all of Xekkur’s vices.

When paired against him, the well-decorated soldier that led the rest of the other unit may as well have never existed. He was nothing. Just an easily overlooked, bipedal crab whose hat spoke louder than his person. His claws were thinner than the other man’s mountainous arms, and his expression revealed the knowledge that he was far out of his depth. Still, the shellfish was the one to ride forward when the army stopped outside the restaurant. His mount was a female of his species, a more standard-looking crab measuring in at roughly five meters across.

“We bid you surrender.” His voice was eerie. It was not quite high pitched, but it lacked the bass that one would associate with a creature three meters in height. The effect was amplified by the strange, phantom chittering. Every time he spoke a word, there would be another sound as well, a mix between a hiss, a snarl, and a croak. “Anyone that drops their weapons and submits within the next five minutes will be given a fair trial. Do not worry. If you have no part in the crimes committed at this location, you are likely to have all charges dismissed.” The shop’s clients began murmuring to one another, confused by the sudden declaration. “Those that remain on the premises after the appointed time, however, will be considered a threat to the crown and subsequently eliminated. The timer has already begun. Make haste with your decision.”

The warning was followed immediately by a clamour of voices and feet. Some customers were confused, others terrified, but whatever the case, the guests abandoned their places in line and scrambled for the door. It was just a few people at first, but the stream blossomed into an ocean when the message sank in and turned their composure to panic. Their confusion was a given; the customers were ordinary people without the slightest clue as to everything going on. Arciel’s associates had long been warned against visiting; the attack was too likely for them to run the risk.

“Holy crap, finally! It feels like we’ve been waiting for weeks!” The crowd’s trepidation, however, extended not to the resident fox. Sylvia had been bored out of her mind. They had run out of things to talk about by the second day, and she was more a fan of fish than she was the sugar that filled the store’s treats.

“Let’s go.” Claire stood up and held a hand out to the cat sitting beside her.

“Go?” Lia blinked. “Go where.”

“Where else?” The lyrkress’ eyes were on the prison wagon at the back of the procession. The captives were lined up outside, where a grunt recorded their names and tied their hands before ushering them up the plank, while an officer standing inside the vehicle assured the crowd that its members would see no harm. It was difficult to tell with the man’s fancy armoured helmet on, but Claire was fairly certain that he was bald beneath it.

“Huh? Why would we go there? I know they look intimidating, but it’s far too early to surrender.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “So we can flank them. Idiot.”

“O-oh, right.” Natalya began pushing herself off the ground, but stopped in the middle of checking her equipment. “Wait, isn’t that a bad idea? Won’t they start attacking the civilians as soon as we reveal ourselves?”

“Can you think of a better way to access the choir?”

“Oh, oh! I know!” Sylvia raised a paw. “We can sneak in with a bubble and be all invisible and stuff.”

“Rejected.” Claire pinched the fox’s cheeks. “That involves you helping. Not allowed.”

“Yeah, but I’m really bored, so I wanna do something,” pouted the vixen.

“Not my problem.”

“Ughhhh! You’re so mean, Claire! I’m sick of sitting around and sleeping! I wanna have fun too!”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Natalya. “How about you tag along and help out the prisoners? I’m sure they’re not very happy about being kidnapped, and you could probably throw our enemies for a loop if you made the carriage vanish. That way, Claire can pull off her sneak attack without getting any civilians killed.”

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Sylvia’s tail shot up like an exclamation mark. “Oh! Good idea! That sounds super fun.” She looked over at Claire, who paused briefly before affirming with a nod.

“Okay! One missing carriage thingy, coming right up!” The fox clapped her paws twice and hummed a quick tune.

“Hold on!” said the cat. “You have to wait until we’ve snuck onboard.”

“Oh umm… Too late.” She stuck out her tongue and scratched the back of her head as her spell took effect. The whole prison wagon floated up into the air and disappeared without a trace, captives, guards, and all. The footsoldiers immediately descended into panic, but a few shouts from their supervisors had them back in line.

“Stupid, stupid fox.” Claire tugged the pet’s cheeks even harder, stretching them nearly as wide as her shoulders.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, I just got a little too excited!”

“And now you see why you’re not supposed to help.” A sigh on her lips, Claire handed the fox to her companion and spread her wings. She rose into the sky, attracting a number of gazes, before raising her hands and pointing them at the enemy lines.

“Wait, Claire? What are you doing!?” shouted the cat.

“Killing the bards.”

She led with a recent acquisition, a spell that started with a tiny swirling snowball. It grew as it closed on its destination, picking up more mass and volume as it spiraled through the air. A musical note moved to intercept it, but it was swallowed by the orb and easily erased. Had a barrier not suddenly appeared around the bards, they surely would have been consumed by the ensuing blast, for the icy ball unravelled on impact, enveloping everything in its vicinity in a burst of magic. The street was decimated by the attack; the nearby buildings were torn asunder, blasted with a coat of winter that dropped their surface temperatures nearly two hundred degrees.

Claire retreated after the initial attack. She flew behind the building, moving at a pace no faster than that of the average seabird. Her enemies recognised this as a sign of weakness, and the commander ordered a squad of flying fish to give chase. They followed her behind the restaurant. And fell right into her trap. She engaged as soon as they were out of their commander’s sight and swept Boris from left to right. He grew to five times his usual length midswing and snapped like a whip, gouging the soldiers’ flesh and bone alike.

Only one of them was fatally wounded. He was unlucky enough to be at just the right elevation for the lizard to split his skull in two. The other three immediately raised their guard, but Claire disposed of them in no more than half a breath. She kicked one with such force that her foot erupted from the other side of his body, cleaved the second in two with a lizard-halberd, and broke the third’s neck with a particularly powerful pair of vectors.

In the meantime, Arciel’s troops took the opportunity to group up in front of the restaurant, shields and spears at the ready. They were in the phalanx formation; their defensive towers were sturdy enough to repel spells and arrows alike and their gigantic weapons deterred any melee attackers from getting up close. The flanks were meant to be their greatest weaknesses, but they were covered by the barriers they had previously installed.

The choir could easily get around their defenses, but the commander’s confidence led Claire to suspect that they had some measure or other in place. But she didn’t care. Whatever the case, she decided to tackle the problem with a scheme of her own.

She reverted to her true form and snaked back around the building as she unleashed a lungful of air. The troops reacted to her massive frame in a heartbeat, calling out her location and alerting their allies. But while they had easily tracked the qiligon, they had outright failed to recognize her attack. The breath was unassuming, invisible even, but her acting played a part as well. She didn’t forcibly eject it like usual, but puckered her lips and blew like she was trying to whistle instead.

The men on the front line froze before they so much as realised she had already engaged. Their instruments and bodies were turned to blocks of ice in tandem. They shattered soon after, vanishing to dust as the breath attack’s destructive, draconic properties were applied to whole persons at a time. It was not a painful demise, nor even one that their minds were able to process. They simply disintegrated as the breath reduced them into their most basic components and scattered them to the wind.

The survivors were not as lucky. Shrieks rang through the choir as skin and flesh were removed in tandem, leaving organs and layers of muscle exposed to the cold. Their nerves were aflame, plagued with the phantom pains that accompanied their broken bodies. But even they were fortunate, compared to those that had taken her spell into their lungs. Those that had inhaled were eaten alive from the inside out, turned to hollowed shells filled with nothing but shattered ice.

Thirty-seven of the band’s forty members were put out of commission, slain or thoroughly disabled.

Claire pounded her wings and propelled her massive body towards the three musicians still standing. Her claws were primed to deliver them to their makers, but she had to swerve out of the way when a wave of arrows arced through the air. The few that found their marks bounced off her scales, leaving only a few faint scratches across their outermost layers. The second volley was more powerful. The archers’ spotters cast spells on their partners and enchanted their tiny spears with additional properties. She dodged most of them again, but a bolt of thunder struck her for each that landed on target. Powerful, paralyzing shocks were etched straight to her nerves. They surely would have been effective, had she not an inbuilt resistance to the thunder god’s element.

She prepared for a third wave, but it never came. The troops shifted their focus to Natalya, who had started charging down the street with the rangers in her sights. Claire found herself mildly annoyed by the development; the archers had aided her greatly in stacking her death’s dance, but she was still a ways off from completion.

The cat was faced with a veritable wall of projectiles, but she nimbly avoided its blades with a series of four-legged pounces. Everything that she couldn’t dodge, she would swat away, sometimes with her claws and others the two-handed horse-killer held in her mouth. Before long, she was in the midst of the fray, swinging with reckless abandon. Person or projectile, it was all the same. Fallen to a whirlpool of death.

Blood sprayed through the air, polluting it with the distinct scent of iron as she destroyed her foes. There was no stopping her, at least not until the mounted commander introduced himself to the melee.

Suddenly recalling the other key figure, Claire looked around to check for his movements, only to find him standing exactly where he had been before with an aloof smile plastered across his face. His wrinkled eyes flitted around the battlefield, examining each place of conflict in detail, but for the most part, his focus remained on her. He grinned when she met his gaze and pointed to the spot beside him. It wasn’t a challenge. He hadn’t drawn his weapons or otherwise launched any attacks. And despite his aura of supremacy, he even somehow managed to look somewhat friendly.

Claire was suspicious, and awfully so, but she eventually chose to comply. Dealing with his scheme was better than allowing him to run wild.

She tucked her limbs in, dropped out of the sky, and slithered towards him. She didn’t stop or slow until the moment before they made contact, but he watched on with confidence, not bothering to raise his guard even at the end of her false charge.

A number of spells chased after her, but she shook them by looping behind him, turning humanoid, and obscuring herself behind his massive frame. She kept her guard up, of course. Her stance was low and her hand was on her lizard, just in case he suddenly decided to strike.

“Relax. I just want to talk.” From up close, his grin revealed a row of jagged teeth. He looked closer to the part of a carnivore than he did any sort of another member of his race.

“Well I don’t.”

“Don’t say that, it’ll be quick,” he said, with another grin. “I’ve heard about you from some of the boys, and they were right. You’re just the kind of violent war criminal we’re short on these days. How about it? Want to join us? You aren’t exactly an erdbrecher, but I’m sure the boss would be happy to have you, so long as you don’t dry up in the sand.”

Claire narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.

“We’re a pretty famous bunch, where we come from. I doubt you’ll find a better group around here, at least. We pay well, with three quarters of each commission going to its participants. Vets and commanders get a higher cut, but not by much.”

“I don’t care.”

“We go all over the place too. You’ll hardly spend any more than a few seasons in a given place, and sure, it’s bloody, but it’s like going on a vacation every time you head out to work.” What irked her most was the genuine enthusiasm in his voice. He was like a pushy salesman, namely one that was well aware of just how annoying he was.

“Shut up.”

The command was followed by an immediate attack. Claire dashed up to him and swung Boris at his neck. The four-legged snake turned into a heavy axe, brutal enough to cleave even the thickest of spines. But he didn’t even touch the man’s skin. One of the many golden pieces strung around his neck had intercepted the attack and held strong beneath the full extent of its force.

His eyes began to glow, but she didn’t give him the opportunity to demonstrate his abilities. While her forces didn’t work on him directly, she was able to pull one of his allies into his back and knock him off balance. He regained his footing immediately, but by then, she had already retreated back to the building’s roof. She channeled her mana, concentrating a large chunk into her vectors as she prepared to lift the building into the sky, with the dog still attached to its roof.

She was on the verge of unleashing the spell when she cut herself short and drew her lizard instead. Her gut was telling her that he wasn’t to be trifled with, that she was better off running away as quickly as she could. It was the same feeling she had when she first spotted him, but Claire clenched her tail and stood her ground. Fleeing was a coward’s game. And she was not a coward.