The sound of drums echoed across the landscape like rolling waves of war and coming bloodshed. I listened quietly for a few moments. The sound wasn’t unfamiliar, after my campaigns here in the south, though I hadn’t heard it often. It felt fitting that the drums should sound now, as we marched on the enemy’s stronghold.

The Imperial army was still some distance from the city. An opposing force had assembled outside its gates, spreading through fields and across the streets leading to the capital. It was considerably smaller than ours, but many fighters might still be hiding behind Saria’s walls. I glanced at the city, panning my gaze across the gleaming walls and the buildings and towers rising behind them. Hopefully, they’d taken their civilians to safety. I knew there would be no easy surrender this time.

I took a deep breath, sucking in the crisp morning air. The sun was only just peaking over the horizon, though it was actually quite late by my clock, and I knew it would not be out for long today, at this latitude. That was alright, it wasn’t like we needed sunlight to see. And every cultivator here was strong enough that the cold wouldn’t affect them.

My horse pawed at the ground and snorted, clearly feeling some of the accumulated nervous tension in the air. I patted her neck absently, and she quieted. I hadn’t ridden White often, but she’d allow me to move quickly without using my own qi, and I had a feeling I would need every bit of that I could scrape together today. So will we all. I glanced at my companions. All of them stayed pretty close to me, most of them on their own mounts or flying swords. Aston had increased my usual guard detail again, despite us needing every elite we could for the battle. He’d argued that I was a primary target for the enemy, and I hadn’t contested the point.

“There are more than I thought there’d be,” Ceion commented quietly.

I glanced at him. He’d come closer than I would have expected. “What’s your take on it?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure. I think the great families and the temple are probably working together. No matter how much they dislike each other, an enemy army at the gates is the sort of thing only idiots put their grudges above, and they’re not idiots. Unfortunately.” He pulled a face. “Exactly how their arrangement works or who’s in charge, I can’t guess. Possibly not the same one as whoever has the strategic command. But with the Storm himself involved, we should probably expect the worst.”

I nodded. That was pretty much what I’d thought, too. I wish there was some way to separate them and keep them fighting. But I guess that’s just not very realistic if we also want to have our army attack them. Especially without losing more time. I sighed. I could have tried to make the Basement try something like that, maybe increased sabotage, but even if they’d put themselves into that much danger, I didn’t think it was worth the risk.

“Are you going to give a speech?” Tenira asked, nudging her horse forward beside mine.

I snorted. “No. I could, but I’d rather not. I don’t think our soldiers lack motivation, and I haven’t had the time - or, to be honest, wanted to take the time - to prepare a speech. I’m sure their officers, the generals, and the nobles are exhorting them to fight for their home and honor, anyway.” And for me, probably. While I might be popular with the army, I didn’t know how much that would help.

“Well, if that’s what you want. I suppose you’re right, these are all hardened veterans. And they have other factors bolstering their morale. Some people actually constructed a small shrine to the Moon, you know? It went up very quickly.”

I sighed. “I suppose I can’t blame them for wanting to feel a touch of the divine before battle. If I had the time, I might have bitten the bullet and gone to give blessings to more of our soldiers.”

“That certainly wouldn’t have hurt,” she agreed. “But look, it seems there’s finally some movement.”

She was right, the Zarian forces were starting to move. A veil of qi went up over the city, making it impossible to see what went on around the walls and the gates. I cycled some qi to my eyes, but the technique didn’t give in that easily. I knew more cultivators from our own army would be trying to break through it. After a few seconds, I switched my attention to what was happening at the borders. Zarian soldiers were starting to move away from it, drawing closer to us. Were they actually coming out to face us? Maybe they wanted to goad us into an attack.

“Lady Ki says we should let them keep going and not attempt to attack them yet, my lady,” Aston reported.

I nodded. I would have expected a message like that from General Poteri, but I supposed eighth-stagers assumed some special privileges for themselves. And in all fairness, Ki was an experienced warrior, and she might be trying something to pierce the Zarian technique at the moment.

It quickly became clear that this wasn’t a full-on sortie out of the city’s defenses. A few cultivators took to the air and flew over to us. Many of our fighters responded, throwing attacks at them, though the Zarian were nimble and dodged many. Then some of our elites rose into the air to counter the enemies trying to harass us from above. I watched in silence, knowing it wasn’t my place to dictate movements in the battle.

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Though, clearly, the battle had just started, and the Zarian were acting more aggressively than some of our commanders had predicted.

After maybe half an hour of this, the veil over the city began to fade. I couldn’t see much that had changed at first, though on closer analysis, they seemed to have rotated their fighters on the wall and more were now stationed in a forward position. Those shifted outward slightly as if angling to meet us. Meanwhile, the airborne Zarian, now considerably diminished, started to back off.

After a short time, the call went out to advance. I watched as our front ranks started to march on the city, going slightly downhill. When it was our turn, I let my horse pick her way forward, my eyes still fixed on the Zarian.

I couldn’t have pinpointed a moment when the real battle started. At first, only the tip of the vanguard and single cultivators started to clash, but this soon transitioned into proper skirmishing. Our formation ‘expanded’ the way it usually did in battle, giving each cultivator more room to fight, though it remained pretty tight compared to some of our battles in the past. The Zarian had concentrated most of their strength, and we were willing to indulge them.

The army’s forward motion slowed and the flashes and rumbles of the battle grew in intensity as more soldiers joined the fray. Our army had a large numerical superiority, which complicated matters a little when it came to finding optimal positions. But the Lighters, mostly positioned on the edges and in the rows a little farther back, did their jobs with the skill of hard-earned experience. Their squads fired on single cultivators, sometimes bringing them down and sometimes draining their personal qi shields before switching to new targets. When I focused on it, I could easily hear the short calls used to establish their targeting.

Then the rumble of airplanes grew overhead as our bombers went in for their first run. Most of our airborne cultivators came along to protect them. The Zarian sent some fighters to attempt to drive them off and bring down the planes, but they didn’t manage to break through to many. I frowned, watching closely. They didn’t seem to have assigned this a high priority.

I saw why when our planes let their payloads drop over the city and the qi shield intercepted all of them. It seemed barely strained, only a few small distortions appeared that faded quickly.

I sighed. I should have expected them to have a lot of power in the city’s shield, but I still didn’t like seeing it. I could already tell that our next strafing run would be just as useless as this one. And the ones after that probably, too. It would need a lot to begin breaking down the shield for real. While we could do that, it also increased the time our planes would be targets. Worst case, we could easily send flying cultivators to take over, but then we wouldn’t have them available for fighting the Zarian directly. They had the advantage of fighting a defensive battle.

I was tempted to try and help, using my techniques to attack or maybe buff my soldiers a little, but I held back. I felt like this was all only the beginning, and I should save my strength. It was an intense battle, sure, but a quiet kind of intense. I watched closely, and confirmed that no one was going all out and burning all of their qi. There had been very few deaths so far. The battle would keep raging for quite a while longer.

I glanced around, then nodded at Aston as he stepped closer. “How are things going?” I asked quietly. “Any word from the generals?”

“No, my lady. They haven’t sent any messages to you. I believe the battle is going according to expectations, but everyone is staying cautious.”

I nodded. He was probably right, and that was a good thing. Everyone knew this battle would be decisive. It still felt a little surreal to actually be standing here and seeing my army fight for the enemy capital city. I wished General Wei were here. While Poteri was certainly competent, I’d feel a little better with him in command of the battle.

Then darkness descended, the air pressed down on us with the smell of rain and ozone, and I realized we hadn’t been cautious or prepared enough.

The sky was covered in clouds so dark they almost instantly plunged the battlefield into night. Wind picked up, ripping at my clothes and stinging against exposed skin. Droplets of water in it soon turned into grains of ice. A presence descended over the battlefield, crushing down on me as if someone had turned up the planet’s gravity to double its normal value. And in the middle of the field, at the front of the Zarian formation, a towering figure formed.

It seemed like qi and clouds and rain streamed together to make it, the form of a warrior at least three meters tall, wielding a long spear in one hand and a wicked-looking spiked mace in the other. The weapons looked purely solid, and dark enough they almost seemed to draw in light. But they couldn’t compete with the depths of the warrior’s eyes. It was like looking into the eye of a hurricane and realizing it only led to the fury of a bigger storm. The Storm.

Jideia lifted his weapons and let out a wordless bellow that echoed over the battlefield. I saw soldiers clap their hands to their ears as the fighting momentarily paused. I didn’t feel much of an effect, but my horse reared up. She started bucking, gone completely wild. I threw myself from the saddle in a less controlled motion than I would have liked and barely saw her running away towards the mountains through the driving rain and groups of soldiers.

I didn’t have much attention to spare for it, because the Storm took a step forward that shook the ground, leveling his spear and shooting a bolt of lightning from it. The lightning seemed to split right away, arcing towards dozens if not hundreds of people and striking all of our fighters in the front line. Very few of them managed to keep their feet. And that was probably just a test strike.

I sighed and straightened up, pushing some wet hair out of my face. Then I started moving.

“Nari!” Elia looked almost panicked as she rushed closer. “What are we doing now? This is - we can’t fight the Storm!”

I nodded and pulled a face. “I know.” I kept moving backwards, barely looking at them as my guards started clearing a path through the surrounding soldiers.

“This is a physical incarnation of Jideia, isn’t it?” Tenira asked. She kept pace with me, but kept glancing back.

“Yes. Possibly not the only one. Almost definitely not his full power.” I glanced back, too, noticed how far the Storm had moved forward, and doubled my speed. We were almost out of the army now. “I knew Jideia was going to do something, but, shit, I didn’t expect him to actually show up and fight the battle for them.”

“Where are you going?” Kajare asked.

“To get help, of course.”

Hopefully, it would work. If not… well, I could probably already kiss most of my army goodbye. We didn’t have much time.