“Dalia, can you deal with the chaff?” Orlan asked, one of his knights approaching from where she’d been towards the back of the formation. While all of the knights wore distinctly feminine armor, Dalia’s was on another level, like a strange mix of amor and an evening gown. With a flourish she returned her paired blades to the single sheath they shared.
“I’ve just the spell,” Dalia replied with a feral smile.
“Try not to burn down the forest this time,” Lailra teased.
“One time,” Dalia grumbled in annoyance even as she took a deep breath. Reaching out with both hands five concentric circles of blazing red light flashed into existence in the air. Orlan motioned for the others to cover her while she cast, while magic was extremely powerful it took time to summon, especially when casting spells at or near your limit. As a fifth sphere mage Dalia’s limit was fifth tier magic, it was possible to push past those limits but it wasn’t something you wanted to do in combat.
Orlan summoned a quick barrier as the ant princess noticed the glowing magic and began casting her own spell. Alia added a wind shield and between them they managed to deflect or block the stone spears that shot their direction. Some of the nearest ants had begun rushing up the slope towards them, but a withering hail of low tier spells forced them back onto the fairway. Given time the ants would eventually overwhelm them through sheer numbers, but all they had to do was hold the mass off until Dalia’s spell finished.
“Ballet of the Dancing Flame,” Dalia said as the spell circles she’d summoned flared, a mass of burning mana shot from the spell towards the ant horde. The Royal guard were quick to pull the princess back and cover her with their massive shields, but rather than impacting the spell seemed to slow down and transform midair.
The ball of energetic mana burst to reveal a ballet dancer made of reddish energy, as if some kind of off color ghost. The dancer landed gracefully among the ants, at more than double their height she was easily seen even without the bright red-orange light she gave off. She began to dance to some unheard song, pirouetting and spinning across the battlefield at a deceptively slow pace. Any ant her spinning foot or sweeping hands touched was almost instantly incinerated, but the real danger was dozens of flecks of red energy sent flying with each of her movements. Drifting like snowflakes anything they landed upon they burned. Grass, chitin, dirt and rock all burned beneath these sparks of mana.
Dalia’s main inherent ability was an increase in power for spells or attacks that were beautiful, while the dancer was a fifth tier spell this ability pushed it to match a sixth tier in power. Even as it burned ants by the hundred the Royal Guard were largely unaffected, their shields able to repel the flakes of fire the dancer gave off. The dancer was insubstantial but could still be blown, any time she got too close to the guards they waved their shields, the wind pushing her away as if she were a cloud of mist. This kept a small core of ants around the royal guard safe while the majority of the army burned.
“Well done,” Orlan nodded in approval as Dalia fell to a knee in exhaustion, though her smile never wavered as she took in the destructive beauty of her spell, “Nallia, stay here with Dalia, keep her safe and provide fire support.”
“Yes Lord,” the blank faced mage-knight agreed.
“The rest of you, as soon as her spell ends, we’re going in,” Orlan continued, “It’ll be hard to get at the princess while her guard are still up, so we’ll take them down first. Alia, Lailra, you keep the others locked down while Pena and I focus down one at a time.”
“Yes Lord.”
“Yes Master.”
Orlan barely waited for the chorus of agreements before dashing down the mountain, his heavy armor and strength allowing him to plow through the brush in his way. Only occasionally did he seem to flicker in and out of existence as he rift-stepped through a larger bush or tree. Dalia’s dancer burst after a last spinning flourish to kill off the last of the ant monsters remaining near the royal guards, the rest having scattered to avoid the destruction. This left a field of smoldering ash as the stage for the battle, the fairway being almost unrecognizable.
The princess attempted to fired off another wave of spikes at Orlan and the charging knights, but a beam of light forced one of her guard to pull her back and shield her from Nallia’s spell. Approaching within a hundred feet Orlan drew his arm back and threw his spear without breaking stride, a greenish spell circle appearing in its path as Lailra cast an enhancement spell on the throw. Orlan still scowled as the spear failed to break the sound barrier even as it rocketed through the air towards the ants. Two Royal Guard attempted to cover one another with their massive round shields, only for a gust of wind to buffet one of them, preventing them from stacking up.
Seeing its partner stumble away the Royal Guard was forced to angle its shield to deflect the spear away, barely managing it before the weapon struck. Despite catching the throw at an angle, the spear left a large dent and long, deep scratch in the thick bronze shield before finally being turned away, rendering the shield nearly useless. Rather than waste time dumping the damaged shield the guard ant drew its own spear back to strike the now unarmed Orlan as he quickly followed his spear.
The torso sized spear tip lashed out, perfectly timed to meet Orlan just as he entered range, but the protector vanished the instant the ant committed to the attack, stepping through space to appear beneath the massive centaur-like ant. More confusingly for the royal guard was the fact that he was holding the spear he’d thrown in both hands. Despite catching the monster off guard the spear was unable to penetrate the thick chitin of the ant’s leg, while the weapon was sharp enough Orlan’s reduced strength wasn’t enough to push it through, resulting in a modest scratch but no real damage.
To the side the second royal guard was busy dealing with a confusing maelstrom of winds that constantly pushed it around, Alia’s main inherent ability giving her winds greater force but made them harder to control. This made her perfect for pushing physically superior opponents around, locking them down, even if she lacked the ability to deal them serious harm. A third royal guard was struggling against torrents of incorporeal thorn covered vines, its carapace slowly beginning to rot away from Lailra’s abilities. The final was forced to stay back and cover the princess as intermittent blasts of light or fire lanced down from the two knights back atop the ridge. Neither presented a real risk to the royal guard as Dalia was low on mana while Nallia’s light lacked impact, but the instinct to protect their princess was too great to abandon her.
Orlan rift-stepped backwards through a shield bash only to be caught in the side by a wild sweep of his opponent’s spear, launching him a dozen feet away. Aside from a slight bruise he was unharmed, his armor absorbing much of the impact, but it was a grim reminder of how much strength he’d lost with his spheres. An instant after he hit the ground he’d stepped through space and was once again assaulting the leg of the royal guard, his spear blurring from a simple attack spell, causing the weapon to strike three times with each thrust. It reduced the force behind each strike by a third as well, but that was immaterial to Orlan. His core inherent ability, the one gained at the first sphere, was his hidden weapon. Not as flashy as rift-step nor as utilitarian as his person spaces, void strike caused the spear-tip to glow with an unearthly black light that was injected into the target with each strike.
Shifting its weight the royal guard kicked out with the leg Orlan was assaulting, forcing him back while it began to turn its attention away from the seemingly impotent protector. But as it brought its foot back down the entire leg crumbled like it was made from sand, the light of the void corroding the chitin. As the massive ant stumbled Orlan rift stepped into the air, his spear lashing out at the eyes of the great monster. It flinched away so the thrust struck its forehead instead, leaving a nasty gash in the carapace but failing to penetrate. Despite that Orlan summoned a small barrier beneath a foot so he could once more rift-step away from the royal guard, flashing over to the ant being battered by Alia, ignoring it as it had intended to ignore him moments earlier. But it barely got a chance to right itself before the void energies injected into its head damaged its small brain.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Its simple mind was unable to comprehend what was happening as its limbs twitched and seized, seemingly ignoring its desires. For several more seconds it struggled to control its thrashing limbs, falling to the ground, before the damage caused by the void strike spread too far and it fell dead.
Seeing one of her royal guard fall, with another soon to follow judging by the vast swaths of rotting chitin on the one facing Lailra, sent the Princess into a rage. Ignoring the attempts to protect her she summoned several spells and began firing spears of earth wildly at the humans who dared attack her hive. Before the lances could strike anything a beam of light lashed out like a sniper to engulf her head. One of her eyes was instantly reduced to a smoking husk while the other seemed distorted, but Nallia wasn’t a damage dealer, so while the tier three spell had struck directly against the ant princess’s skull it failed to eliminate her. Instead it seemed to drive her even more wild, her sight damaged she threw spears wildly in every direction, even striking her own royal guard a couple times.
Seeing the opening Orlan stepped past the confused guard, his spear flashing out and cleanly removing the princess’s head in a single strike. A second royal guard falling moments later from a combination of Lailra’s rot and the princess’s spikes. From there it was only a matter of time before the last two guards fell, their protective instinct so strong that they refused to abandon the princess even seeing her dead. The other regular ants had begun to gather once more, but seeing the princess fall they had no qualms about fleeing, scattering into the mountains. Many were cut down by the second lance which had spread out to contain such a scattering.
Groups of survivors even took their own toll on the fleeing mass, heavy hunting rifles and shotguns brought down at least two dozen of the monsters as the horde fled. With no organized resistance the national guard units finally managed to push north, reaching the golf course as Orlan and his knights finally gave up on chasing the last few ants.
\-\-\-\-\-
“No way we’ve enough space in the hold for all’a this,” the captain of one of the two cutters said, shaking his head looking at the pile of ant monsters fifteen minutes later.
“Focus on the bronze and the bodies of the royal guard then,” Orlan replied after a moment, “I think most of the weapons are imbued to tier one or two which should help repair the damage the island took.”
“You already throw the weapons of the guard in your personal space?” the captain asked.
“Along with the body of the princess,” he agreed, “that’s all at least tier three, so hopefully we can get another cutter or two operational with it.”
“Shame there’s no good wood on this side,” the other man added, “harbormaster says he can only fix a couple cutt’rs with what lumber ‘e’s got.”
Orlan simply nodded, the sky docks were hit especially hard during the transit, leaving them with only two functional sky-cutters. Compared to the half dozen they’d had it vastly reduced their transport abilities. It was one of the main reasons he’d been forced to leave the training lance behind, there simply wasn’t space to bring them on the ships they had. Not if they wanted enough room to bring a useful amount of loot back.
Looting the monsters was the main way Protector Lords sustained themselves, combined with a largely self-sufficient town on their islands allowed them to remain almost completely independent of outside funding. Of course several kingdoms on the other side had issues with the arrangement, to the extent that there had been several wars about it, but it remained the standard.
“Looks like the local’s wanna talk,” the captain said, breaking Orlan out of his thoughts and gesturing with his chin towards where a couple men in camos were approaching. Orlan took a breath and turned to meet them, several of his knights pausing in their work to pay attention.
“Orlan?” the large man asked, holding out a hand in greeting, “Major Williamson of the North Carolina National Guard.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Orlan replied, taking the offered hand only to pause as the Major’s other hand came up to slap a cuff around his wrist.
“I was told to arrest you if…” Williamson started, only to trail off and Orlan reached up, pinched the cuff between two fingers and, with a simple twist, snapped the metal as if it were cardboard.
“There going to be a problem” Orlan asked.
“Nope,” the Major said, sounding almost relieved, “I’ve some friends who live in Jefferson so I’m grateful you were able to save people. I had my orders, though, and this way I can say I did my best.”
“Fair enough,” Orlan shrugged after a moment, then gestured over his shoulder, “my girls have avoided using magic healing where possible, so there’s a number of wounded scattered about. We tried centralizing them where possible, but we don’t have the resources to treat them all.”
“We’ll handle it,” Williamson replied, motioning to the man next to him, “just give the Lieutenant their locations and conditions.”
“Nallia,” called Orlan, the blank faced knight appearing and producing a scroll which she handed to the Lieutenant.
“You going to completely police the field?” Williamson asked once that was done, “I’ve got no orders to the effect, but I imagine the brass will be upset if you take everything like you did in Boston.”
“We don’t have the ability to take everything,” Orlan snorted, “we’re focusing on the most valuable stuff but there will be hundreds of monster corpses we can’t fit.”
“Great.”
“A word of warning, though, magical materials are dangerous,” Orlan added, “just handling them should be safe enough but if you start messing with them you’re likely to release large amounts of mana. Even if you aren’t allergic to the mana it can still cause injuries.”
“I’ll pass the warning along, but chances are they’ll ignore you.”
“They’ll learn one way or another,” shrugged Orlan, about to turn away when he paused and reached out to pull some fruit from his personal space, offering one to Williamson, “banana?”
“What?” the large army man asked, confused.
“Passed through a half collapsed grocery store while fighting,” Orlan explained, “there aren’t any bananas on the other side so I grabbed some. Will that be an issue?”
“Well, no but…” Williamson stuttered.
“So you don’t want one?” Orlan asked as the major seemed confused before shrugging and walking away. As he walked he returned the bunch to his personal space long enough to peel the fruit he’d separated, retrieving the bunch to offer one to various knights and sky-cutter crew that had gathered to watch the meeting.
They all seemed interested, watching as Orlan demonstrated how to peel and eat the fruit before he moved on, retrieving more of the fruit to distribute. The knights ate with a feminine grace that was at odds with their blood-stained armor while the sailors quickly scoffed the fruit down before returning to their work of loading up the flying ships.
“Major?” one of Williamson’s asides interrupted the man’s thoughts, “something the matter sir?”
“No,” he replied after a moment, looking down at the dark skin of his hands.
\-\-\-\-\-
“You have been ordered to appear before congress,” the voice on the other side of the phone explained to Orlan, “an emergency session has been called three days from now, you are to arrive at the capitol building by nine in the morning.”
“Ordered, huh?” Orlan asked.
“You claim to be a US citizen, if that’s the case then yes, ordered.”
“You’re not making this easy for me,” Orlan sighed, “Protector Lords aren’t beholden to any nation or king.”
“You’ve been operating a military force on US soil and you expect a polite invitation?” the other man asked skeptically.
“Last I checked the US doesn’t own any floating islands and, before you try to claim this one, we do, in fact, have a flag,” Orlan retorted with a smile that slowly faded as the line remained silent, “guess that joke has been forgotten.”
“I’d argue that we’re being very generous by having you appear before congress rather than taking you directly to jail,” the other man replied after a moment.
“I hate politics,” Orlan groaned openly, “what kind of hearing is it?”
“This is a public hearing.”
“So you want to grandstand at me, great,” he sighed again, “fine, assuming there isn’t another rift I’ll be there.”
“Good,” the other man replied before hanging up.
“Are you really going?” Lailra asked as Orlan dropped the phone back into his personal space.
“I need to talk with the government one way or another, I’d prefer to do it on my terms but clearly they aren’t going to let me do that,” Orlan explained.
“It’ll make them think they’re in charge,” she warned.
“They can think what they want, I’ll disabuse them of that notion if needed.”