At first, we moved slowly, carefully. The soldiers had drawn tighter around me and Tenira, and they now all carried weapons. I couldn’t make sense of who wielded what weapon, but they would know what they were doing.
Still, I couldn’t help glancing back. I saw dark shapes just above the forest’s canopy. They could just be ordinary birds, but they seemed pretty large. I wish I could take out my telescope or use a technique, but I needed to keep my attention on our march, and the soldiers would probably block my line of sight.
It didn’t take us long to reach the crossing, where a road split off towards the south, away from the Green Forest. It was narrower than the one we’d been using before, and the soldiers’ formation shifted again. But the sides of the road had slopes, shrubs and the occasional tree, which wouldn’t help if we needed to run. Besides, I could feel traces of qi in the material beneath our feet.
After a few minutes, a figure appeared on the road, quickly growing closer. I tensed until I recognized Kei Weriga, the guard Aston had sent to scout ahead.
He bowed and fell into place in the formation. “Captain, the road ahead is clear.”
Good. I turned around again, looking back towards the forest. There were definitely dark shapes there, more than before. The outline of some matched the nomads’ birds with riders.
“Aston,” I said, “are these raiders coming in our direction?”
He spared a glance behind me, then gave me a smile that showed obvious strain. “It appears so, Your Highness.”
Silence fell after that, although we increased our speed from a walk to a jog.
At the next bend of the road, I felt Tenira shifting beside me. “Why aren’t we flying? Wouldn’t we be faster?”
“We’d be more conspicuous,” I said, glancing at Aston, who was sending a qi construct right now. “Aston probably thinks we might go unnoticed by them.”
I didn’t feel that was likely, but it was worth trying. I tried not to think of the many soldiers we’d sent ahead to save a town from another group of raiders. The fact that there were this many Zarieni here, even in the forest, didn’t bode well. There can’t be many targets here worth the risk for them.
Another qi presence drew near, this one a lot faster. I barely turned my head in time to watch them come up behind us. Virtuon Les, one of the two Aston had sent as rearguard, in the sixth stage. The formation parted around him until he reached his captain.
“There’s a group of nomad fliers that nested in the jungle,” he reported, breathing hard. “At least several dozen. Some of their birds carried double. They’re coming in our direction.”
I looked back as Aston asked a few questions, focused on what I could see. The few shadowy figures had multiplied, and they obviously moved closer.
Aston picked up speed again, turning our pace into a full out run. I cycled qi into my legs to keep up. Hopefully, the fact they were moving in our direction was coincidence, but that felt like wishful thinking. Still, by the time we moved into the air ourselves, they would be almost upon us. Since there were a number of cultivators with earth affinity among my guards, we might have better cards on the ground. I wanted to ask Aston, but saved my breath. He didn’t need me interrupting him.
I glanced back occasionally, trying to gauge the speed of our pursuers. Their forms drew closer, until I could make out their shapes clearly, and they still moved in our direction. They were flying in a V like formation, like a swarm of birds, but they were too big and their riders too visible to pass for a normal one.
I pumped my legs harder to keep up with our increased speed. I also drew on the qi in my dantian more heavily, but it still had a lot remaining. When I tried to gauge the qi levels of the soldiers, it seemed to be the same for most of them, and no one was running low.
A flicker of qi to the side of the road distracted me. I squinted, trying to get a better look. The qi coalesced into the upper torso of a person, its face drawn crudely with no distinguishing features, long hair whipping in the wind around it. The spirit shook their head as it watched us.
I exhaled, feeling cold suddenly. The warning of the spirit before my departure played in my mind. The one here dissolved, its qi moving away.
I focused on my spatial ring, searching it for an item I had put in back at the palace, but never used before. A ring tumbled into my hand. I glanced at it, checking it over quickly. It looked simple, woven together from strands of wood, with a few bits of crystal inserted in odd places. In my qi senses, it barely showed at all, like it was supposed to. I put it on my left pointer finger. After a bit of hesitation, I fed it some of my qi. It took more than I should spare, but that couldn’t be helped. The ring’s presence didn’t grow more pronounced, but it sharpened, and strings started to connect it to my meridians, so thin I could barely make them out.
We continued running. When I looked back again, the nomads had drawn closer, but they were still far enough away that I couldn’t be sure they were following us.
Suddenly, Aston stumbled in front of me. It looked like he wanted to stop, but his momentum made him slide further. I had no time to wonder about it, though. My qi sense screamed.
In an instant, I realized what was going on. A huge formation lay beneath our feet, drawn across the road and over the space at its edges. Qi pulsed beneath us, and hung above the ground like a solidified mass, encasing our feet and lower legs. Everyone stopped, rooted in place by the formation. The trap.
My heartbeat raced and time seemed to slow down as my body screamed at me. The sense of danger sharpened my mind, making things stand out with unnatural clarity.
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A flare of qi streaked across the sky towards us. The air around it wavered and distorted. I could barely move my eyes fast enough to track its progress. It seemed like I moved my head in slow motion. In what had to be a fraction of a second, it barreled toward me, growing from the size of a marble to the size of a basketball and more. It set my qi senses screaming until my qi thrummed in my meridians. A shield of qi wavered into existence before it, but the attack tore through it in the next instant.
I had to react, but my feet couldn’t move, and I didn’t have time. I tried to twist sideways and raise my hands to shield me on instinct. Before I could, the attack reached me.
For a moment, my world was nothing but light and heat and overwhelming pressure.
When I came to, I lay on a slight slope, my head ringing. I blinked and raised it. I was on the side of the road, the attack clearly throwing me away from the trap. When I took a breath, my chest hurt. I picked myself up, moving into a sitting position and glancing around.
More nomads descended from the air. One of them had an overwhelming presence, enough to make breathing difficult even in normal conditions. Clearly well into the seventh stage. A few others accompanied him, all probably in the sixth stage.
I stayed down and assessed my injuries. It felt like I was bruised all over, and I might have broken a few ribs. It should have been far worse. Forcing my hand open, I glanced at the ring. A few of its crystals had broken loose, and its strands where unraveling, its qi spent.
It had been one of the most valuable things I owned, a one-use defensive measure strong enough to take a technique using most of the qi from someone in the seventh stage. I hadn’t told anyone about it, not even my guards or retinue. That’s why whoever set this trap didn’t know, right?
Then I shook my head and forced myself to stop thinking about that and focus on what was happening. I still felt a bit dazed, but I needed to push through it.
Aston and a few other people rose into the air to meet the incoming Zarieni. Qi flickered in front of them, forming shields and grasping at the attackers. More of the soldiers were moving toward me, making a defensive formation. Someone pushed Tenira to me. A few soldiers were still struggling to break free of the trap.
It probably hadn’t been intended to hold us for more than a few moments, but that was all they’d needed. I could see how the soldiers’ formation had been broken. But the strike meant to assassinate me had failed.
I barely managed to stand up before the real fight began. A group of soldiers clashed with the Zarieni seventh-stager with a roar of thunder and a bright flash. A few others took on his companions, trying to keep them away. The soldiers on the ground started shaping the earth, assembling bigger weapons, or throwing techniques upward.
I focused on my spatial ring, taking out my best weapon for this occasion. A repeating crossbow made of qi-infused material and enchanted several times. I planted it on the ground, lining up the first bolt. It was cumbersome and took a while to use, but for this fight I had firm footing and targets to shoot down.
I saw the other group of nomads rapidly approaching, some of them already diving down to join the fight. The pain I felt was distant, my adrenaline pushing it away, letting me focus on the fight. I took a shallow breath and pulled some light qi, gathering it at the tip of the bolt. Then I aimed the weapon, squinting through the sights until I found one of the nomads, and released.
In a flash, the projectile impacted on his barrier. I didn’t see how much damage it might have done, but this had been a practice shot, anyway. I let the crossbow redraw itself and inserted a second bolt.
This time, I concentrated and pulled darkness qi out. I made a technique, forming it around the head of the bolt. I hadn’t perfected this one yet, but it should work. Then I switched targets to one of the higher-stage nomads and fired. The shot crashed against her barrier, but the ball of darkness latched onto it. I could feel it flickering before it stabilized. One of my soldiers used the opportunity to launch a devastating attack at the nomad, blowing her back.
Seems like the Void’s Nibble is a success. Frowning in concentration, I prepared a second shot. This time, I tied the technique into the bolt, cutting it off. It wobbled a bit, then stabilized. This really was a good weapon. Carefully, I aimed for the nomad in the seventh stage. He was still airborne, fighting several Imperial soldiers.
I took a deep breath, then concentrated on the qi around me, sinking into it. I focused on the air, setting my gaze on the area around that fight. With an effort of will, a small vacuum formed, pushing against the enemy cultivator and tying him in place for a moment. I’d already released the bolt, and watched as my technique crashed into his shield. It held, but I knew it must have taken a hit. His opponents capitalized on it, launching a barrage of attacks.
The fight raged around me, soldiers and guards facing off against nomads. But the occasional flash, thunder or wave of air couldn’t shake me. Since it had worked so well, I repeated the combo a few more times. The soldiers knew what to expect now and worked well with me, keeping their opponent tied down for me to hit. If I focused, I could see how his barrier recovered after my technique, but not quickly enough to keep up with the attacks. We were wearing him down.
Suddenly, after I’d launched another one, the soldiers scattered. I barely got a glimpse of a fiery spear bigger than most trees before it crashed into the nomad.
I blinked and turned. Behind us, a group of three cultivators had appeared. Their auras gave me no doubt they were in the seventh stage. Probably officers or elites. Well, I guess this fight was pretty noticeable. Their trap definitely was.
The nomads tried to retreat, but they didn’t get a chance. The leader’s hair was burning, and he wobbled in the air. Aston darted in and decapitated his opponent before he could recover. Then he chased down more of the nomads. The three seventh-stagers made short work of the strongest members of the nomads’ strike force. It didn’t take long for the fight to end.
The front of my crossbow thumped into the ground before I dismissed it into my spatial ring. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, I tried to assess the situation. Tenira stood beside me, obviously unharmed. That took a weight from my shoulders. But a lot of people littered the ground, both nomads and Imperials, although the former were in the majority.
“You alright, Tenira?” I asked.
She nodded. When she stepped closer, the concern in her eyes was clear. “Inaris, you’re hurt!”
That seemed to stir the guards around me to action. One of them asked, “Your Highness, how are you?”
By this point, the effects of the fight were wearing off, and the pain came back with a vengeance. I winced, then glared at the soldiers surrounding me. “I lived, no thanks to you people. Useless rabble, what do I even keep you around for?”
They backed away and bowed their heads. I shook my head and tried to breathe deeply. Someone just tried to kill me. It’s natural to be stressed, but lashing out won’t help.
Another soldier took a hesitant step forward. I recognized Ki’aun, a healer. “Your Highness, please let me tend to you.”
“Don’t,” I said shortly. “I want you to use your qi and best items for those injured badly. I’ll live, they might not.”
He moved away quickly, another healer who’d started to approach me following. Tenira stepped closer, taking my shoulder to offer support. “Are you sure?”
“A soldier’s life matters more than a bit of pain,” I said.
She smiled, and I could see the soldiers around me straightening up a bit. Well, I had said that for PR effect. But it was true. Soldiers being alive to fight for me were more valuable to me than not being in pain for a bit.
Feeling tired all of a sudden, I took a pillow from my spatial ring and placed it on the ground, sitting down carefully. Sorting everything out here would take a while.