I felt light.
Soaring through the skies, over bombed out buildings. Diving through the clouds – gliding over trees and onto a snowed-in asphalt road. A grainy texture filtered through my vision. A familiar olive drab truck was parked by the roadside. Closer and closer, more detail became evident. Eventually you could see the blonde driver’s face, and begin to make out the digital camo that adorned her outfit just as well as the look of contempt and exhaustion she expressed.
It’s me. A fucking drone’s about to hit me. This must be yet another nightmare, and I wanted nothing more of it.
…
Everything absolutely ached. Laid to my left was Kantax, soundly asleep. On the right, was Nora in a wheelchair staring blankly out the window. We’re at the lab, and the calendar by my desk says it’s been four days since the battle.
“You’re awake, again?” Katerina said with vibrance.
“Hey,” I muttered. “I.. can’t feel my arms.”
“Rujia and I tried to salvage what we could, but we did our best. I tried to reapply your wig and makeup and moved you here, just as you requested.” she said.
Right. My air rifle blew up. Maybe the grease in the barrel might have dieseled and detonated the air tank or something. I checked myself, and found that I really did lose my left forearm, and two right hand digits. Index and ring. I apparently made the requests when I woke up prior, but I don’t remember.
Kat gestured to the ceiling. “We also tried to fix your lab by cleaning things up, before moving you here.”
“How many? Casualties, I mean.”
This inquiry took Kat aback. After a moment, she pulled out a clipboard report from her satchel. Updated yesterday.
Total dead, roughly 731 so far.
94 dead Pulveran soldiers, 17 dead civilians.
The wounded are already innumerable.
The rest are theirs.
Have they no mercy for their mothers?
We’re coming across more bodies every week.
There’s no shortage of names I knew. There’s the painter Ruben who loved my sketches, Alanna the bricklayer who helped build Shoreside, and Maraya the chef who was always busy serving dishes there. Even Vermli, the postman who served as my truck’s sergeant and told me to keep driving, didn’t make it.
Several unfamiliar names were amongst ours, and perhaps that’s for the better. With every untimely death of someone I knew, it ate away even more. Most of the fallen had at least someone waiting for them, and many left behind families. Anthrax and I got swamped with writing letters to them all. Solomon, Nora, Kantax, and Rujia filled in the blanks on the ones I didn’t know.
After all the funerals, I unlocked a dusty cabinet for a filled notebook. It was here that I drafted all the evil I could recall. Smokeless powder, guncotton, and dynamite to name a few. Even theoreticals for the Haber-Bosch process, which I’d meant for making ammonia fertilizer, will now be used for bombs.
Perhaps those evils are now necessary.
“What are those notes for?” Nora asked, having followed me in her wheelchair. My heart sank when I heard her. “I know that you have more secrets tucked away, for killing people. I could tell you’ve been holding back for ages. You haven’t made anything quite like that revolver from back then.”
She handed me a looted weapon from the battle.
“We found three more weapons just like it.”
There was no doubt that it was a poor bronze matchlock recreation of my revolver. Whoever tried to replicate it couldn’t quite figure out the primer caps, chamber seals, and more.
With a tilt of her head and a subtle nod, she was asking how much more suffering I had in store for the world. I played a stupid game by making that gun, and now I won a stupid prize.
“Teach me what you know,” Nora asked.
…
82 cycles old.
We adjusted all of our machinery and tooling to begin making firearms en masse. Inkunzi arrived last month, and warned me that I’d become a target of Ischyros as well. I told him that I wasn’t going to risk the people of Pulvera today for an inquisition that may never come.
He didn’t leave. He couldn’t – he knew that our success was partly due to him. I saw a sense of betrayal in his eyes, but I hope he saw the desperation in mine.
I’d built countless prostheses for myself and the many others who also received amputations. I even added spring-loaded fingers to make up for the two I lost on my right hand. My wrist still hasn't recovered completely from that mace injury over a decade ago, but it’s all I have left to work with. In my past life, I was a leftie. This time, I’m right-handed and no longer have a choice.
We’ve improved our engines and even made a lighter diesel engine for possible aircraft use. Our redoubt had become even more compartmentalized as more and more hardened facilities were built inside over the past few months.
But one evening, I was in my new office-lab deep into the redoubt, designing a ship based on Rokmuran naval requirements. And suddenly I heard sprinting, and groaning from down the hall.
Someone had snuck in, killing anyone in the way – perhaps to get to me. I grabbed my bullpup revolver prototype and began aiming at the unlit doorway.
But the assailant was too quick. He fired an arrow at me before I could aim fully. It smashed my pistol apart and rebounded into my table lantern, starting a fire beside me.
“Isolus Enviar, stop hiding. Your demise has come.”
Fuck! Can’t I catch a break?
A familiar voice, but no matter. He stepped closer and closer. My right hand bled from the arrow’s impact, and flames began to spread.
I had no choice but to use my old survival knife.
“I must end your hubris, here and n-”
Gunshots, then an arrow flew past me. Blood dripped, and then poured. Gagging, and gasping. A bow fell to the floor.
Old Kantax spoke. “My dear, I can’t let you do that.”
The man reeled. “How, how did-”
“Never got used to me sneaking up, huh?” she said.
Kantax had fired several rounds into the assassin’s back, causing him to collapse. She holstered her revolver, and held the dying man in her arms as she whispered.
“Sal, I couldn’t let you kill our princess.”
“Wait, what the fuck?” I said as I got out of cover.
She lowered his hood, highlighting Arsalan’s face with reflections of the fire beside me. They shared a moment of silence.
“Hah, you’re both.. alive, and well, I see.”
I had no words.
“Forlasita, princess, come here,” he said.
I bandaged my hand. “You just tried to kill me, dad.”
“Ah, I’m.. sorry about that. And the, others too.”
He started coughing up blood.
“I have been fooled. Anne, of my countless years, I am glad.. to have spent some of it with you. Seeing you both has brought me joy beyond words. And princess, please, forgive me.”
Kantax pressed her thumb over his lips.
“Sal, I wish I could see you one last time.”
His grip began to shake. Arsalan caressed her face and his palm began to glow brighter than any healing magic I’d ever seen before. I could almost hear him grit his teeth.
Kantax soon seemed decades younger, closer to Pipra. And she could see, again. But magic like that doesn’t come cheap, and nobody stores that amount in willpower alone.
“P.. pretty lady. It hurts. It really, really-”
“Shhh, quiet dear. I know. I’m here for you,” she said.
“So, this is.. is the coldest it’s ever been,” Arsalan uttered.
His hands slowly began to drape from hers. She held on tight, tears streaming. She kissed his forehead, reminiscent of when I used to see him kiss hers long ago. It’s been so long.
Kantax quietly sobbed, as the room began to darken even further now that the lantern oil burned up. I held them both, after I treated my wound. Arsalan kept a vindictive letter from Prometheus’ Own – they sent him here to kill me, or die trying.
We buried Arsalan within the open atrium of the massive fortress. I have tried to stay dissociated from the situation, as he also killed a few of my retainers. One of them being Rujia, who was coming to deliver a personal report on better strains of algae. These retainers were buried in the new Pulveran graveyard.
I tried to hide the truth from Ostracia, who had been out of town with Strelya as part of a large contingent for an expedition down south. Her lamentations on Rujia’s grave got unbearable to see real quick. She lives with Katerina now.
…
83. The conflict continued.
Dozens of new battles are fought. We have the scouting and transport advantage with our airships and trucks, but the Brigantii have reliable spy networks that we’ve found difficult to subdue. Kantax created a counter-intelligence committee called the Wardens, but I’ve formally listed it as Pulveran State Security.
I’ve been holed up for so long in the labs and offices and allowed my commanders to reign over operations as the situation in La Royaume deteriorated. Many have sought refuge here in Pulvera. Some Brigantii settlements have even allied with us.
We stand firm over a realm of uncertainty, outnumbered, but hopefully not outgunned.
…
84. Autumn.
I’ve assumed the identity of Lieutenant Forlasita. Only a handful here actually knew Isolus wasn’t my real name, so this isn’t too difficult to pull off. Kantax, Rujia, and Inkunzi knew. This disguise is basically that I have none. No makeup; my scars are all laid bare. The best part is that I don’t have to maintain a facade of composure. I hope this helps keep the target off my back.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Currently, Phaedra and I are the only two officers from Pulvera roaming within La Royaume’s borders. We’re near the northwestern coasts trying to contact the Rokmuran merchant convoys. They’re dropping off goods up further north where caravans can travel to us by land. We’ll meet them by then.
We don’t have the luxury of ancient magical ‘sending stones’ or instant communications, so I’ve had to fly out here on the passenger seat of our prototype biplane named “Render” by Phaedra – she got that from how well the propellers seemed to trim trees. We fly at night, keeping the vehicle hidden by day, trying to coordinate with the Rokmuran convoy.
She’s a talented pilot, and has trained other dirigible operators, as well as an actual batch of pilots for when new planes arrive. Her ‘Red Baron’ type of bravado made her popular.
I decided to go with her because I can negotiate and plan with the merchants, and because if anything breaks on this damn thing I might be the only one who can fix it quickly.
Render’s had over a hundred hours of flight in ideal conditions. But one sunrise, we flew over Pike Ridge; a set of fault-block mountains. And man, being in the sky with someone like Phaedra, you realize how some people have clearly never been told to shut up before.
“So, the balloon got hit by this massive cannonball.”
“No way, you’re kidding right?” I passively replied.
“I. Shit. You. Not. Basically Isolus was just like-”
“..just what?” I asked, after a long pause.
“What is that?” she said, turning to me.
“What was?”
“No – I’m serious, lieutenant, check our six.”
A small dragon had been chasing us, and further behind, several more were coming. The furthest one was several times larger. We’d just trespassed the skies of a red dragon nest.
“You gotta be kidding dude – swerve right! Quick!”
Phaedra barreled the biplane down to the right, evading a fireball from the small dragon. It dove to catch up to us, but Phaedra throttled the plane faster.
“Lieutenant! They’re gaining on us!” she screamed.
“Keep going!” I yelled back. “Give me a moment!”
It’s been a while since we issued out our Pulveran bullpup bolt-action rifles – designed to be complex yet cheap, compact, easy to maintain, and hopefully reliable. We only had one caliber, our very own 10x30mm intermediate cartridge. Not sure if you could call it intermediate, since there’s nothing to compare.
Using a feature I secretly built into all our rifles, my rifle can discreetly switch to semi-automatic mode so I can shoot as fast as I can pull the trigger. And I’d need to pull a lot, because there’s a dozen dragons on our tail. I needed a machinegun.
“You just gonna sit there!? Start shooting!” Phaedra yelled.
I did something odd during early tests, and I could take this a step further by jury-rigging a ‘shoestring’ modification to my already semi-automatic rifle, to create a fully-automatic rifle instead. It disabled some of the safeties but I pretty much had a 20-round automatic rifle, one firm squeeze and it’s a full send.
Although I brought a disposable rocket launcher, I can’t fire it behind us; the backblast risks destroying the plane, or risks frying us both – it’s meant for Royaume warbeetles.
I aimed for their eyes as they were vulnerable there. If I couldn’t, I’d go for the wings to slow them down. Their scales are too thick for our bullets to penetrate, but I fired away.
This went on for several minutes, as Phaedra had to keep diving to gain more and more speed for evading dragon attacks just above the forest canopy. Other dragons noticed Phaedra’s evasive maneuvering and decided to fly higher and fire at us.
Fortunately, their light underbellies aren’t armored at all so even my rifle could dart through their fragile organs. To think Skippio forced his men to do this shit with muskets and such.
“Go get ‘em!” she yelled. “Kill them! AIM YOUR GUN AND KILL THEM!” she ordered, as if I had anything better to do.
“I’m trying!” I cried back. “Keep it steady!”
“COME ON! THEY’RE OUT BEHIND US, SHOOT THEM!”
I kept firing from below, and some of the remaining smaller ones veered away to leave us alone. Phaedra decided to circle around a mountain to buy us some space. I was able to shoot down the last one who crashed, but not before it could tear a piece of the right wing off. One of its claws got embedded.
But the largest one – a red elder dragon, went the opposite way and intercepted us. Phaedra jerked the controls away from the mountain and the elder’s mouth. We lost a lot of speed, but she decided to go down into the Fulvia gap. The valley descended, and at its lower end sat a friendly mining settlement, Fulvia.
We lost some control on the upper right wing from the embedded claw. I got up and reached out to dislodge it. Our right wing was damaged, but still worked.
The huge beast left trails of magical flame as it kept missing us. It was still faster, and it kept gaining speed. Phaedra had been pushing Render to its limits, I don’t know how much more the craft can take. I had to end this soon, or we’d both die. I grabbed the rocket launcher and double-checked my parachute.
“Phaedra, PULL UP!” I screamed. “NOW!”
“That’ll slow us down! I’m gonna keep diving!”
“Dive anymore and we’re underground! PULL IT!”
“Fine, you crazy bitch! Kill that fat lizard!”
“I’ll buy you time – get to safety!”
Phaedra pulled, and Render started tilting up. Her wings vibrated violently from stresses she wasn’t meant to handle. We raised dozens of extra meters off the forest. The furious red elder dragon was moments away from ensuring a hit.
The plane had stalled, and the gigantic lizard was charging a shot until I jumped out. This was it, all or nothing. I dove out beside the plane and felt time slow down, as the adrenaline raced through me once again. The dragon’s golden reptilian eyes exchanged a gaze with me. I led the target with my aim, and pressed the trigger. Fwoosh, went the rocket.
A thunderous bang knocked the red dragon out of the sky, hell yeah! But the Render was done for, too. The upper right wing had just been torn off from the stresses of Phaedra’s flying. The plane was thrown into a heavy spin. I opened my parachute, and hoped to see her bail out to use hers.
Yet instead of bailing, she throttled the plane even further to gain more speed. This seemed to increase stability? Render dove faster towards the ground, and Phaedra regained control!
My heart sank once again when I realized that despite her efforts, she’d already lost too much altitude. She then crashed Render straight into a tree.
I landed, and sought for her wreckage. The plane was done for, as the central fuselage was firmly stricken through a branch. I climbed up and saw Phaedra bleeding from the head.
I did what I could with the medical supplies I had on hand. I made a scuffed wheelbarrow from a piece of wing and wheel, and fastened her to it after stabilizing her. It was like a stretcher.
Eventually we arrived at Fulvia. The kind villagers offered us both food and a ride on their next ore barge south.
Don’t you dare die on me; Pipra would kill me.
…
85, winter. Phaedra’s still in a coma. It’s been months.
The last of the gorosi fields are reaped, and the last batches of algae are harvested again before everything freezes over. We’ve prepared a whole lot of fuel for a project that’s taken years.
We just built our first warship, the PNS Onslaught. Jac had volunteered to captain the corvette, after Skippio’s artillery apparently sunk his old ship in our wharf. He’s a seasoned captain, but I joined the maiden voyage as Isolus just in case.
Now a stalemate, our only support is the unrest Brigantii’s citizens had towards their leadership.
The Onslaught is a relatively small ship, much smaller than what the Hirene river couldn’t fit. We built a large diesel engine, and she’s the first ship to utilize internal combustion. We fitted every bell and whistle we knew. Inkunzi was skeptical of the specs on paper, but was awed when he saw it go. It’s leagues ahead of their chain-riding river steam trains, and faster than any steam-sail ships Ischyros had.
Our trucks filled with volunteers took point alongside the shores of the river to report targets to us ahead of time.
This worked out well, as our one modern artillery turret had explosive shells, new propellant, and a basic autoloader. Our 120mm vastly outranged every other cannon in Mondo.
The blockade had finally been broken as we sank dozens of ships. The rivers ran with heaps of obsolescent scrap.
We proceeded with the second part of our plan, to escort the Rokmuran fleet headed southwest of La Royaume. This was easier said than done, as the Ischyrosian grand formation had recently been sent to destroy the merchant vessels. Ischyros had long formulated reasons to wage war on us, and force Rokmuro to break ties. It didn’t work, so now they’re going to try and sink the innocent merchant ships that brought us food and other key resources up the Fekunda Strait.
Jac said there’s no way we can stop an armada unless we had the blessing of Vox, the god of the ocean, like the ancient champion Acherona did. Acherona of long ago, had manipulated the waves itself. But Inkunzi taught me most of what he knew about dwarven naval tactics. At this point, they’ve already adopted guns themselves. That rendered moot their initial point of waging war on us – the fact we’re using such weapons like the Jade.
Phaedra and I previously managed to sneak a trezotype of a few of their new steam-sail ships. They seemed more like galleons, with dozens of primitive broadside guns. We have the capability of defeating them with range and speed alone.
I’m not about to let those Rokmuran merchants die. I overrode Jac’s orders and forced the Onslaught to engage.
Our incredible speed and firepower allowed us to not only break the Brigantii blockade over two days, but also intercept the hostile Ischyrosian strike fleet in the next two as well.
We saw them on the horizon, large and imposing ships with water displacements perhaps a hundredfold of ours.
We ran full speed ahead. No massive smokestacks on our wake, just the whirring of a massive diesel engine. We were almost in range to fire at them.
But the icy fog arrived. We were close enough to shoot at them, but there was no way for us to see them unless we got in range of their massive broadsides – we weren’t armored enough to withstand a good volley from such. It sickened me to my stomach, and I had the urge to tell Jac that perhaps we should back off.
Maybe we could somehow signal to the merchants to dock somewhere while we fought.
“Can’t we use that plane in the back to reach them in time? It’s gotta have some sort of use in this.” Jac asked me.
“Huh. Maybe we can win this,” I said.
We had two pilots on board, and one seaplane. I had a plan, but ultimately we wouldn’t need the plane for it.
I took one of the parachutes from the plane, had it splayed out, and cut two holes in a way that kept it stable. Now, I had the crew mount the chute to a crank via cables. Lastly, a pilot would need to go parasailing. I’d volunteer, if I still had my left forearm and if I was a little lighter.
The experienced pilot trained by Phaedra, Arzo, apparently got motion sickness from being on a ship and was bedridden. He had never been on the ocean before. The other is a fresh recruit who emigrated from La Royaume. Her name is Rumi, and she said she’d do it if I tripled her pay. Done.
I taught Rumi how to use my compass, since she barely knew how. We strapped her onto the parasail, and let her rise.
“Miss! Are you ABSOLUTELY sure this is safe!?”
“Probably. If it fails, we’ll just pick you up and leave.”
From a growing distance, her voice got fainter as the winds blew harder. She said something, I couldn’t quite make out.
“You need to YELL! We can’t hear you!” I yelled out.
“FUUUCKK!” she screamed, distantly.
“Good! Now find the closest ship!”
She was confused at first, but eventually she figured it out. I quickly fashioned hearing cups so I could hear her better, and a cone so I could yell back.
“Uhh, eight ships! Closest one is.. 345.. 348!”
“Distance!”
“How!? I’m not sure! Kinda far, I think!”
We got closer, until we had its silhouette barely visible. I told her the distance. Just her letting us know their bearing was good enough, since they were all so massive compared to us. We could see their silhouette long before they could see ours.
We practiced this for half an hour in the harsh weather. Then, we started firing our secret weapons – crude and inaccurate torpedoes, when we were able to verify her directions.
Worried that our first torpedo missed, we fired another. It catastrophically destroyed the ship by igniting several powder caches near their paddle wheels. We outpaced all of the enemy ships by a factor of four. This kept going well until the fourth sinkage, when we overtook the whole fleet.
We turned and wove between them, firing torpedoes at shorter ranges. We flanked another and fired a torp up close, only for the blast to be so massive that even our own crew got injured. Some dwarven marines with repeater crossbows tried to swing over to board us, but were gunned down.
Gryphon dragoons were soon dispatched to locate and sabotage us. They first tried to land on our deck but our new 15mm heavy machine guns made an absolute wreck of their birds. Our single cannon turret was excellent at picking off the possible powder caches on enemy ships – probably because good old Anthrax is here to advise them.
Some gryphon riders began attacking Rumi, later shredding her chute. We reeled her in, but she sustained a few injuries as she got dragged across the water. She took out two riders using her own 10mm revolver. Impressive.
All eight sank. The fight was over – but we passed a ninth ship. The IRS Theseus, with a broken steam engine. A familiar dwarf was on board. It was Jedidiah, with a piercing glare countless degrees colder than the freezing waters below.
His crewmen were in the middle of repairing their rigging and engine. Their cannons weren’t ready, and their crew was stunned by the sight of fifty Pulveran crewmembers with readied rifles. No more shots would be fired today.
“Pick up your survivors, up ahead!” I yelled out to him.
We left the vicinity as the fog lifted, but never saw smoke rise out from the Theseus. Still dead in the water, for now.
Soon, we were able to locate and escort the merchant fleet. Their slow ships allowed us to keep our engines at much more efficient cruising speeds. More and more uniformed dwarven, gnome, and halfling corpses appeared; floating towards the coast.
Ischyros’ flagship flotilla was defeated that day. From what I remember, the Theseus preceded the other ships which were a more advanced Colossus-class. All of them housed between 400-700 crew, with hundreds of additional boarding marines meant for taking over the merchant ships.
Assuming the Theseus wasn’t able to reach most of the survivors or able to have the capacity to transport them, then hypothermia would’ve done most of the killing. Wish we had enough life preservers for them, but even that might not have been enough. I can’t tell for sure, but I had to write up a report. This doesn’t even include souls lost in the Brigantii blockades.
The Battle for Fekunda Strait has concluded.
4500 or more dead Ischyrosians.
The PNS Onslaught’s crew sustained minor injuries.
Hundreds of Rokmuran merchants returned safely.
Person of note, Rumi Aubine, for valorous conduct.
May these terrible conflicts end soon.