Come on…
The shrieking cacophony of biting, gnashing teeth that was the Keth-Tari regiment rushed towards Marcus, a living wall of malevolent intent. The ground beneath him trembled as their serrated talons shredded the earth with each powerful stride. He stood firm, his boots digging into the slick stone of the rain-slicked bridge, eyes fixed on the twisted mass of flesh, feather, and fury approaching. He could feel the sweat trickling down the back of his neck, mingling with the rain as he reached out with his mind, summoning the focus that Mari had so carefully tried to teach him in the scant days before this madness had begun.
Granted, it wasn’t exactly the best time for practicing.
The jungle surrounding the bridge was alive with tension. Massive trees loomed like ancient guardians, their canopies so thick they nearly blotted out the pale light of the dying sun, casting eerie shadows over the battlefield. A distant bird screeched, its cry lost in the growing storm. The air was thick with humidity and the scent of damp earth mixed with blood—a heady cocktail of life and death. Thick vines twisted up around the trunks, and here and there, brilliant flashes of color betrayed the presence of poisonous flora, shimmering beneath the cover of thick leaves. It was a place that devoured the weak and tested the strong. And today, it would bear witness to war.
Marcus ignored the cries of his comrades, who rushed to aid him, only to be clipped by the flanks of the horde as it descended like a singular, unified organic mass of pure, raw animal purpose. A few Pipers were sent flying as the winged beasts swooped low, tearing through ranks of soldiers with cruel precision. There was nothing natural about the Keth-Tari—a testament to the twisted alchemy of their masters. Their wings were too large, their beaks too sharp, and their black eyes too empty of anything resembling animal instinct. They were bred to kill, driven by a singular hunger that could never be sated. Their wings beat against the rain, the droplets hissing against their flaming payloads.
And then, as if a flare had ignited in his mind, a charge flashed in the air.
The Pipers felt it as an onrush of energy beaming from their leader, who stood atop the rainswept bridge’s apex and faced down the screaming demons of the skies. It was as if the very air around Marcus had changed—become more charged, more alive, despite the oppressive weight of the storm that rumbled overhead. He felt the power coiling inside him, desperate to be released, to be channeled, to find a target for its destructive potential.
One of the creatures—one of the Keth-Tari screamers, right in the center of the horde—began to twitch and turn erratically, as if caught in a sudden wind gust. Its wings faltered, and it began to drift to the side, disrupting the uniformity of the attack.
Come… on…
The rider noticed the disobedience of his beast and gave it a stout kicking in its unarmored ribs, his movements frantic, aggressive. He shouted curses in a language Marcus did not know, but the tone was clear—pure, panicked rage. The rider yanked at the reins, forcing the creature to dive toward Marcus, intent on turning it back toward the single, vulnerable target that had presented itself so willingly to the horde.
But the beast did not obey. Its gaze, once fixated on Marcus, now glazed over with confusion, then fear. It had a new Master now.
Go on… Marcus whispered in its addled mind, the power flowing from him in waves. Let go…
The beast’s eyes bulged with sudden fury, its muscles trembling beneath its thick skin. It darted toward the forms of its fellow brood members with a sudden spike of anxiety. Its rider, still oblivious to the shift, practically beat its torso bloody and raw with his blade, desperate to regain control.
Then, without warning, the creature veered sharply, crashing into the Tari on its right flank. The impact was catastrophic. With a terrifying screech, the creature’s payload—its deadly Hakka bombs—detonated on impact.
“Holy… Get down!”
The voice had been Mari’s, slicing through the roar of the chaos, but Marcus was too far gone, too absorbed in the sight unfolding before him to move. The few seconds stretched into eternity as the right wing of the horde buckled, the entire column of screeching monsters detonating in a fiery storm. Each Tari’s own bomb ignited in a cascade of explosions, and the chain reaction tore through their ranks with devastating precision. It was more than enough to throw Marcus from his precarious perch atop the bridge. He flailed in the air, arms reaching for something, anything, as he plummeted toward the river below.
He watched in stunned awe as the burning birds smashed into the base of the bridge’s structure. The stones cracked and groaned, and Marcus had just enough time to telegraph his final thought to his comrades.
Everyone… run.
Mari’s scream echoed across the battlefield, her voice raw with panic. “Marc!”
Her grasping hand missed him by a breath. Even Hialjia, the mighty Tauron Princess, reached for him as he fell, her broad frame straining under the weight of a hundred dying, flaming Tari that continued to crash into the bridge. His last vision before he hit the water was of the structure beginning to crumble, stone and metal giving way under the relentless assault. Hails of arrows pierced what was left of the Keth-Tari units, but it was too late for him.
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The cold crimson seas swallowed him whole.
…
“Back! Back!”
Karliah’s commands rang out above the general chaos that had erupted on the collapsing bridge. The wooden beams, slick with rain and splattered with blood, groaned and creaked as they began to come away from their sockets. The weight of the burning Keth-Tari was too much for the structure to bear. Hialjia grabbed Mari as she tried to rush after Marcus, the Tauron’s muscular arm easily restraining the frantic woman. Her immense strength was put to better use, ferrying the Yokun archers off the bridge and tossing them to the safety of the jungle’s edge with surprising tenderness.
The jungle itself loomed around them like a predator, ancient and indifferent to the suffering unfolding in its shadow. The canopy above provided little shelter from the rain, and now the ground below was slick with mud, making every step treacherous. The dense underbrush was filled with the calls of unseen creatures, their voices sharp and ominous. Above, thick ropes of mist coiled like serpents, further obscuring the retreating forces.
Karliah, meanwhile, kept her Tigran sisters and brothers moving with haste, her feline grace giving her an edge on the unsteady terrain. Her eyes flickered with both fear and anger as she pushed her soldiers onward, the hiss of igniting Hakka bombs and the shrieks of the dying mixing in the air around her. They were the first to forge the collapsing structure, darting between falling debris and fireballs.
When the last load-bearing beam finally gave way, the entire bridge came crashing down into the churning river below. The remnants of the Keth-Tari were buried in a cloud of dust and splintered stone, their cries drowned by the sound of the river swallowing them whole. The surviving Pipers, led by Sakri and his invisible stalkers, scrambled for cover, avoiding the raining debris.
Mari coughed, soot filling her lungs, as she struggled against Hialjia’s grip. “Let me go… I— I need to—”
The Tauron Princess glanced downriver, searching for any sign of survivors. All she saw were the broken corpses of the demon-birds and their riders, floating face-down in the blood-tinted water.
“So much for our prophesized savior…” Karliah spat, her tone sharp with bitterness. “Mari, didn’t I tell you that he—"
Her words were cut off by the sound of a slap, loud and sharp, echoing through the ranks. The Tigrans watched in stunned silence as their lieutenant raised a hand to her stinging face, her eyes widening in disbelief.
“Enough,” Mari hissed, towering over the smaller woman. Her face was flushed with anger, her eyes wild, on the verge of tears. “We Pipers take care of our own. Or do you only care about your kind, Kari? Are you more like your old Masters than you think?”
Karliah’s lips parted, but no words came. She glared up at her leader, her body trembling with barely contained fury. For a moment, it seemed as though she might lash out, demand her warriors to rise in her defense. But when none of them moved, she swallowed her pride and lowered her gaze.
Before any more could be said, a shout from the treetops caught their attention.
“Look to the North!” Sakri’s voice rang out. “The Masters bring reinforcements!”
The jungle exploded into motion once again as everyone dropped prone or took cover behind the gnarled roots and towering ferns. From the dense foliage emerged a column of Zhurkin—merciless, armored soldiers of the Masters. They marched in perfect formation, their numbers swelling with each step, at least 500 strong. It was an overwhelming force. The Pipers, now pinned with their backs to the river, faced the grim reality of their situation.
But something was wrong. Hialjia, ever-perceptive with her keen nose, sniffed the air. Something distinct cut through the jungle’s thick, earthy scent.
“Hakka…” the great Tauron whispered. “There is the smell of Hakka in the air…”
“No carts carrying the evil flame come with the Masters’ soldiers!” Sakri shouted down from his treetop lookout, avoiding the arrows of the enemy as they flew towards the vague outline of his shape.
“No…” Mari murmured, a keen, bloodless smirk appearing on her face. “Not from them.”
“TALLY-FUCKING HOOOO!”
The scream ruptured the air with as much intensity as the Hakka-cart's payload being unloaded into the unsuspecting enemy as they approached, instantly taking them off-guard and causing them to backpedal to avoid the clusters of burning hellfire that traced a smoking arc in the sky before coming down to singe them inside-out. Mari watched with no small satisfaction as the enemy burned, her Pipers’ reticence turning quickly into a desire for bloodshed.
“SORRY!” Marvin screamed across the bridge from his men’s position—his gunners reloading their charges for another volley directly into their bumbling foes. “BUT BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, AYE? WAS BEGINNING TO WORRY I MISSED ALL THE FUN!”
Never, Marvin… Mari thought. Not you.
She gave the order to charge in the next instant, sending thousands upon thousands of slaves bursting out of the dense Arasaka jungle and cutting through their enemy’s faltering clusters of defense. They fought with the ferocity of a people unified in hate. They fought for a new world, not the preservation of the old. Mari was no wartime expert like Marcus—but she did know one uncontested fact: Conservative revolutions don’t ever work.
She bent to help Karliah rise, but the Tigran slapped her hand away. Yet it was not anger that burned in Karliah’s eyes now. She wouldn’t even look at her leader in this moment.
“By Razorg’s Ballsack!” Hialjia roared. “Where is the fancy man?”
The three women looked to each other and then at the flowing river, carrying the bodies of the departed out to the Southern jungle sea. They searched for any indication of Nagoya and found nothing but rubble and broken corpses.
“You don’t think…?”
“Marc…”
Before Mari could sprint down the riverside, Karliah stopped her, grasping her arm and finally locking gazes with her mistress.
“You… the people need you here,” the Tigran said. “I’ll find your man and bring him back to you.”
It was Mari’s turn now to stare blankly in confusion, but when she tried to protest, the Tigran wouldn’t hear a word of it. The bruise from her leader’s slap was still fresh on her face.
“Like you said, we don’t leave our people behind, right?”
Mari almost wanted to laugh. She didn’t deserve the loyalty of this kitten. She didn’t deserve a lot of things…
“Kari,” she said, pushing her own stiletto into the Tigran’s waiting hand, “Give him hell.”