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Areas where they’d infiltrated the defiled temple previously were now plugged up. Barricades were erected in the drainage corridors running underneath the temple. Patrols had been tripled. The reeds were now dried out trampled flat, preventing assault from the east. The old dock was now several feet above the waterline. Jean’in supply boats were serviced by ladder from a lower pontoon dock; impractical for storming the camp, clubs drawn.
Indeed, the waning Torrent now transformed the old temple complex into a natural motte.
Maat, Lloyd, and Kur traded the spyglass around within a dense, green and brown pile of river kelp. It was still sticky with accumulated moisture. The raw humidity of the stormheaths prevented the water from evaporating even after the rest of the river had run off.
“Not climbing up there without hooks and rope,” Kur said.
“Hmmm… the drainage tunnels are out, yes. But there may be something we can use there.
Maat pointed towards the temple’s central chamber. A dried-out natural harbor twisted below various metal additions from the foreign garrison. Under the cover of darkness, they may just be able to sneak in there, climb up into the temple’s central chamber, and attack the camp from within.
“The foreigners will have little use for the temple itself,” Kur said. “They’ll never suspect it.”
“That’s the plan.”
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The group waited for nightfall, obscuring their raft beneath a bed of kelp and hiding amidst the muddy riverbed.
Only the last sliver of the primary moon on the horizon provided any light in the night. Caked in mud from the river and with their footsteps dampened by river kelp, the war party advanced in near total stealth. While foreign floodlights adorned the ramparts, the camp was designed to keep people in rather than out.
The temple’s central platform was normally situated amidst a ritual pool. The waters had long since receded, leaving a mound of tightly packed stones that could be quite easily scaled by hand. Within ten minutes the entire war party, minus three to guard the raft, had infiltrated the camp.
“Easier than last time,” Maat said with a smirk.
As suspected, the Jean’in were using the temple itself as mere storage. There were some barrels of sunoil to refuel their ships and searchlights. No firearms, alas; they’d be in a dedicated armory. The sunoil, though, could be used for a distraction.
Rita turned and addressed Sam’iel.
“Pick three guys and guard our exit here. Gather up the oil you can. We’ll light it on fire to cover our escape.” Rita tossed Sam a wooden device.
“This is…?” “A detonator,” Rita explained.
She put another, squishier object on one of the sunoil cannisters.
“Don’t touch that.”
No guards were detected until they made it out into the humid open air of a stormheaths night. Their new recruits were sweating, unused to the atmosphere being so oppressive. Still, it was as cool as it was going to get, and the foreign Jean’in were likewise not acclimated.
A whole network of metallic railings had been established high above the temple’s mazelike courtyards. There was a guard along every avenue and many more standing sentry at every intersection. The ground floor was wholly unoccupied. Some corridors had been blocked off while others had been adorned with double gates to control foot traffic. The dust on the floor was caked with hundreds of overlapping footprints – all heading deeper into the temple.
“We freed everyone last time,” Lloyd said.
“Everyone I could find.” Maat nodded. “Camp has tripled in size since then.”
“Ought to be many more people. Should be making noise.”
Advancing on the ground floor would prove dangerous, even suicidal. Every sentry on the walkways above would spot them with no cover to speak of. So instead, they stole some dusters from the supply depot/temple. Enough to disguise themselves from a distance. The most cutthroat six volunteers climbed up onto the walkways and began a systematic walkway-by-walkway purge of the Jean’in.
It was easy enough at first. Stick to the periphery, away from the guard barracks towards the northern wall, and start slitting throats. The foreign dead could be dispatched off the side of the walkways, clearing the path to the next hapless sentry.
Lloyd relieved one of the first falling corpses of their own duster then joined the vanguard up top.
It was a delicate operation. Timed carefully, they could push far into the camp. And they did have the element of surprise. But that was all they had. If just one guard turned at an inopportune time…
There was a shout in the darkness. The number of active searchlights tripled. A warning siren blared.
“Fight or retreat?” Rita asked Maat. “Decide. Has to be now.”
A dull thud of a firearm, and a scream as one of the vanguard fell off the walkways.
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“Fight. Push ‘em back as far as possible.”
Rita nodded, then leapt up to a high rung to begin her climb up to the catwalks.
A fierce battle had broken out above. Most of the war party had begun climbing up the walls and scaffolds before Maat even gave the order to press the attack.
“Hey, you, with me.” Maat called to ten remaining plainswalkers on the ground. “Rush through the lower levels. We’ll run beneath them. Hit them from behind.”
This flanking force waved war clubs and a lone pilfered firearm as they ran through the dusty temple grounds. Bullets whizzed far above their head, low shots occasionally ricocheting through the corridors they were running through.
Pillars of smoke from Rita’s curios covered their advance. Lloyd and Rita both were barking out orders in the battle above.
After some time, they reached the first locked gate. A foreign metal lock blocked the way. They wasted ten crucial seconds trying to pry it open with a war club before just blowing it to shrapnel with their firearm.
The charge continued. Sentries ran along the catwalks immediately overhead, preoccupied with the brunt of the war party. Nobody was supposed to be down here.
Another gate, this one with multiple locks. The group ran continued past it until they reached a third gate with four simple bars. Designed to keep people in more than out.
Maat pried the barricades off the door. Multiple warriors swung the doors out and open.
A muddy pit awaited behind the doors. Maat’s boot touched something squishy. Indeed, the ground here was uneven.
“The ground. The ground!” said a plainswalker.
A hand jutted out of the dirt. And not far away, a bare, gnarled foot of another stormlander. With all the mud caking everything, the true purpose of this grizzly courtyard almost escaped Maat.
“This place is a mass grave,” Maat said, then, he yelled out: “There’s no one left to save!”
His cry sounded over the din of the battle. It received a response from Lloyd.
“We’re seeing multiple charnel pits from up here. Looks like they just march people into these cages above a pit, lower it down, and flood it. .”
Maat recoiled from the stiff hand brushing up against his boot. Only there was nowhere to flee; death was all around.
The stormlanders among Maat’s party fumed, teeth bared. They climbed up to the walkways above and immediately grabbed a Jean’in or two to throttle by the neck. They were behind the front. There was no time like the present.
“Up. Head up,” Maat said to those who remained. “They’re flanked. Smash them against our two war parties, then keep pressing into their camp.”
Why would the Jean’in build such a camp just to house dead bodies? Or worse still, did they corral living souls in here before their execution? No matter, Maat was going to put a stop to it all the same.
Maat vaulted over the railing, took a quick lay of the land. Lloyd’s group was sweeping around in a great oblong crescent to the north and east, systematically forcing the Jean’in sentries from their perches. The group that had come up with Maat maintained their righteous fury and were engaging in unorganized close-quarters fisticuffs with the foreigner’s back ranks.
The camp to the north was unguarded, with all hands on deck to repel the Stormheaths insurgency.
“Rita. Hit the camp,” Maat bellowed.
“Been savin’ this one.”
A blinding, miniature sun flew over the temple. The lightball moved slowly, casting the entire still-frenetic battle in an eerie red light.
The fireball came to a stop on a Jean’in yurt. In an instant the yurt and the four closest tents were ablaze. A group of figures, dusters on fire, ran screaming from the main yurt.
Panic set in among their foes. Classic mercenary blunder. They were in it for loot and a paycheck, a situation that being set on fire would seriously inhibit. Already, the garrison was beginning to break for the docks.
“Let ‘em run. Secure the camp,” Maat said.
Not that there was much of a camp left to secure. Several charnel pits worth of corpses and a now-burning command post.
Still, they’d routed a superior force with superior weaponry. Not bad for a first war party.
No sooner did Maat think of this, than did a bellowing trumpet sound over the remains of the Torrent.
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A paddleboat was inbound, heading upstream for a supply run. The three sentries who were guarding the raft rushed into the temple to warn them, but they were too late.
The retreating Jean’in were bolstered, fortified in at the sunken port. The ship laden with reinforcements could dock and reinforce their foe at any time.
The best route of escape lay in the dried-up flood plains to the east.
“Retreat,” Maat said. “We’ll head south over land.”
Rita threw out some more smoke-filled cannisters to mask their escape.
The raised platforms continued out over the former swamp. An easy enough leap onto a carpet of dried palm leaves.
Twenty-eight figures ran over the dry riverbed; everyone who could still move over their own power. There were a few injuries, a few gunshots. If they could just make it into the still-lush rainforest they would be home free.
Only the forest ahead of them was also ablaze. The whitewoods still stood, but everything else was smoldering.
Maybe they could lose their pursuers in the smoke…
Maat was near the head of the pack. He tried searching for a trail through the flames.
An arc of flame blocked his path.
Three Jean’in in highly modified dusters, wearing fish-eye masks that obscured their faces, were spraying flames across the forest floor.
One particularly enterprising plainswalker with plenty to prove leapt at these strange new foes and was immolated by a long whip of fire. He danced backwards, visible only as a shadow beneath the glow, until he collapsed on the floor. Far too late to try and save.
“What are these things?” someone asked.
A hammer in the lead burner’s offhand would seem to implicate the forge-priests as behind this newest invention.
Maat found himself grabbed by the scruff of his stolen duster. A fist smashed into his face. If he hadn’t jerked his head at the last minute, it would’ve broken his nose.
“You,” came a hateful, rasping voice.
But with the mask, Maat couldn’t make out a thing.
The war club was just within reach. Maat reached out and brought it down on the burn patrol captain’s head.
Beneath the shattered mask was a scared face, torn from combat both old and recent.
“Come back to hit my camp again?” The Warden asked.
The Warden’s left leg was gone. Replaced with a metallic Jean’in prosthetic of countless metal plates that billowed with each step he took. Movement was entirely unencumbered.
“Maat!”
Lloyd ran in with two war clubs. The first strike bounced harmlessly off a metal cannister on the Warden’s back. A counterattack from the Warden’s hammer sent Lloyd reeling back far enough for the Warden to fry him with another whisp of flame.
Kur and Sam ran in, clubs drawn, but were blocked by a wall of fire from the remaining burn unit.
Sara rushed to her brother – in direct range of the Warden’s flame-slinger.
Maat landed three quick punches right to the Warden’s chest. His fists hit a metal plate and crumpled.
“Stay back,” Maat cried as the Warden grabbed him by the neck.
The Warden threw his hammer, striking Sara right in the abdomen. The Warden’s rammed his face, mask and all, into Maat full force, then reared back and did it again. And again. And again!
Vision grew blurry as the Warden reared back for another blow…
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