“The new catapults are down, my Herald.”
The Herald looked up from her map as her old friend seemingly materialized before her. She’d sensed her coming of course. The Shadow Step technique was formidable form of stealth, but Ki techniques were as air before Zu. Though the same was often true in reverse – if she was caught unprepared.
Which was why she had spent days fortifying this position. The wards around them blazed with power, such that even the champions could feel it if they stepped too close to the runes scattered around her command post.
Even the clan leaders who were scattered about her gave the strange glowing symbols a wide berth.
“Excellent, you were unseen?” Zu asked, turning her attention away from her war-council, who obediently slinked back to let her converse with her second.
The snake-kin shook her head.
“And given that it is you relaying this news to me and not one of the Mountain Crag Clan, it can be assumed that my wayward cousin made a showing?”
Zu’s second paused for a moment, before nodding. “Yes, though she was not the only one to bring down our flyers.”
The Herald shrugged. “That was not unexpected.”
As much as the aerial skill of the Instinctive Rooster-kin seemed to have taken their foe off-guard consistently during this campaign, it would be folly to expect an artifact as valuable as those catapults to be completely unguarded.
After all, while the skills of the Rooster-kin were a fairly new development, the Imperials were more than familiar with the Shadow-Step technique and would have been on guard for saboteurs.
“There was but one cultivator guard.”
That caught Zu’s attention. “Truly?”
“A cavalier, going by her uniform and techniques.”
The Herald made no attempt to hide her scowl. Oh yes, she’d become more than familiar with Imperial cavalry in recent days. As skilled as they were offensive to her sensibilities. The mere notion of domesticated spirit beasts set her blood ablaze with rage.
Instinctively, her fingers twisted as she mentally recited a series of arcane words. Less than a moment later, the guards around her command post staggered back as her ‘intent’ blasted through the camp.
The only one who was unaffected was her second.
“She was not the one to strike down some of our flyers though.” The snake-kin continued. “They were instead slain by mortals carrying small versions of the catapults.”
Zu frowned, cutting the flow of energy to her technique. “Small? …Akin to the device used by the male in that farcical duel?”
Jiguur nodded slowly. “Just so. It was not the same device, but the form and function were similar.”
That was… not good. Not good at all.
“The male arrived, soon after the attack. I could not linger long for fear of your cousin spotting me, but he arrived on a carriage’s drawn by no beast.”
“He’s the source.” Zu realized.
Her companion nodded.
In retrospect, that should have been obvious. Just as male champions were often healers amongst the Instinctive, they were often craftsmen amongst the Domesticated.
And he was clearly a craftsmen of some talent, given the feats he’d shown. Doubly not good.
A lack of blacksmiths and other craftsmen had always been a weakness of the Instinctive. It was, after all, not in the nature of most to create. Only to hunt, scavenge and survive. Of the kin, only the monkey could lay claim to any true blacksmiths.
“We weren’t expecting to deal with a champion craftsmen,” she muttered.
The Horde was prepared for it, certainly, but those plans had assumed that they wouldn’t encounter the more esoteric practitioners until later in the campaign and they were closer to the central provinces. Ideally, by which time most of the Empire’s true combat strength would already have been bled in the war up North, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of it’s force multipliers.
Yet, for whatever reason, they now had a craftsman – a talented one – dwelling within the city she had been chosen to sack.
“Once this meeting is over, you shall spread the word of this craftsman to the other champions. Warn them of the devices you saw and how they might effectively counter them.” Zu paused. “Remind them of the fate of Baidar.”
Jiguuer nodded simply. “Your will be done.”
Good.
For now, the main threat posed by the craftsmen had been nullified. These catapults had likely been the work of years. And while they had reaped a heavy toll on her forces – when combined with the damnable Imperial Cavalry – they had ultimately been defeated by the same thing that would inevitably crush the entire Empire.
Complacency. An assumption that the foes of yesteryear were the foes of today.
Yet we evolve, we adapt, she thought.
“My herald,” one of the clan-leaders finally spoke, a scarred old rat-kin who seemingly never stopped eying Jiguur. “Does this mean we may move our camps closer to the walls once more?”
Zu considered it. The distance they had been forced to move the camps away from the walls to avoid attack had resulted in the enemy being forever forewarned of any attacks the Horde made. More to the point, it tired the warriors before battle was even joined.
“Nay,” she said finally. “The circumstances prior to this moment have not been ideal, but for the moment this position works for us. It will make it more difficult for the foe to undo the coming Great Work.”
She couldn’t help but grin at the shudder that ran through the surrounding clan leaders. No doubt they were wondering which among them would be chosen as the catalyst for the coming ritual.
To tell the truth, she wasn’t sure. Ideally she would have used the Mountain-Crag clan, now that their champions were diminished by their run in with the Magistrate. Alas, she would need them for the final stage of her plan – and not even fear would compel them to aid her if she slaughtered their kin to fuel the ritual.
No, her eyes roamed over the clans before landing on an unfamiliar face. An Ox-kin. Younger than her peers.
Baidar’s replacement, but not nearly her match.
Yes, her clan would do nicely.
“For now,” she said, turning her attention back to the topic at hand. “We shall cease engaging the enemy in piecemeal groups. Return to herd tactics. This will nullify the advantage the Imperial Cavalry have had thus far.”
Ideally it would take them off guard, but personally Zu doubted it. They were too skilled a predator to be caught by such a sudden reversal in their hunting grounds.
No, if she was going to bring them down, she’d need to do it by taking them out of their native environment.
In the streets and roads of Ten Huo, that was where she would run the elite troops down.
“Go, do as I command,” she instructed.
“As you command, Great Herald.” The Rat-kin sank submissively back into the crowd, before they turned and parted as one, taking the dismissal for what it was.
Only once they were gone and she was once more alone with Jiguur and her monkey-kin enforcers did she speak again.
“Rally the Enforcers. Tonight we move on the Grassy-Fork Tribe. They shall serve as the catalyst.”
“While they have lost Baidar, they still have a number of powerful champions,” Jiguuer pointed out.
Zu just turned, eying the distant lights of Ten Huo in the distance. “All the better to fuel the ritual, my friend. They are prey now. And prey must die so that the strong may live.”
Though ideally, the Grassy-Plains tribe would be the last Instinctive lives she would need to sacrifice to feed her advance for some time.
At least until we move onto the next city, she thought absently.
-------------------
“I don’t think you fully understand what you have done.”
She had to raise her voice to be heard over the mechanisms of Jack’s workshop. Yet despite that, he continued to ignore Ren as he played with his newly created sensor module. As she watched, he waved it near her and once more it started to buzz.
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Then he giggled.
“Oh, but I do,” he said finally, just as her patience started to look like it was finally reaching the breaking point. “The Magistrate’s not going to take that kind of backtalk lying down. She’s going to have to do something or risk losing face with her other followers.”
“Then why did you cross her so openly!? Over a single mortal. She’s an Imperial Scion!”
Yeah, Ren had already mentioned that. A few times. Apparently, Shui was in a relatively unique position. Normally your average cultivator couldn’t afford to cross an Imperial Scion. At least not openly. Or without an entire city’s worth of sects at their back.
Which Shui had.
He did not.
Nor, with the way she was ignoring his messengers, did she seem inclined to help dig him out of this particular hole.
He shrugged. “Ignoring the fact that Gao’s the only person on the planet with experience commanding the weapons I’ve made?”
“He has underlings of his own that could be promoted in the event of his death.” Ren hissed. “There are always more mortals. They are as common as stalks of rice and as easily replaced.”
Jack sniffed. “They wouldn’t be as good.”
“A small loss compared to the damage that will be inflicted on us when the Magistrate chooses to punish you for your insolence.”
He shrugged again. “Alright then, killing Gao was wrong. It’s an ethical thing.”
“The man practically invited it upon himself.” She grunted. “He all but threw himself on the chopping block with his words.”
Well, Jack couldn’t argue that. Then again, the whole falling on your sword thing seemed pretty culturally ingrained. When anything failed, even if a cultivator was leading, the most involved mortal was the one that took responsibility.
Kang did the same thing after his failure to account for Ki in his training, Jack thought. Of course, difference here is that really was an oversight on Kang’s part.
There was no realistic way for Gao to have even accounted for the enemy’s increased number of flyers. Let alone counter them.
Apparently it was a lot easier for Instinctive rooster’s to figure out flying.
Rooster, he thought. That just sounds odd.
Given that all the bodies had been female, and by definition a rooster was a male chicken.
He shook his head, refusing to be distracted by that particular tangent.
The whole flying cultivator thing wasn’t really his fault either, but unlike Gao he had a means to do something about it.
He grippe the sensor in his hand and grinned.
Really, this was an idea that really should have come to him a lot sooner.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, but what do you intend to do with that ball?” Ren finally asked.
“It’s a secret.” Jack said as he jogged back a few paces. “And flare your intent at me.”
The woman looked confused, but after a few seconds he heard a squawk from where Lin was squatting on a couch, so he could assume she’d done as he’d asked.
Yet the ball in his hand didn’t buzz.
Excellent.
“Are you at least going to punish Gao for so foolishly putting you in this position?”
“Of course?” Jack actually felt a little offended.
There was no way he was going to let the moron get off scot-free for landing him in this mess. Gao had a world of pain headed his way.
Just not publicly. For much the same the Magistrate couldn’t let Jack’s challenge of her authority go unanswered.
A gang leader that got slapped over the head too often by his corpo masters quickly lost the respect of the gang. So it was best to keep that shit private.
Which is why Gao’s currently - discretely - scrubbing shitters, Jack thought.
And the man would continue to do so during any spare moments he had wherein he wasn’t commanding the militia or directing the gonnes – once the artillery was repaired.
Which hopefully wouldn’t take too long. Sure, saying he’d be able to do it overnight might have been a bit of an exaggeration but not by much as it turned out.
Most of the damage had been done to the barrels of the gonnes, because naturally that was what had stuck out most to a bunch of illiterate savages as weak-point.
Just as he was about to ask Ren to accompany him to the roof for some more testing, Elwin walked in.
And the ball buzzed.
“Huh…” Jack murmured as he looked between the device and the mage. “Interesting.”
“What is?” The elf in question asked.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, glancing at the bundle of parchment she was holding. “What brings you down here, Elwin?
“I have my initial reports on my first batch of students ready for you.”
Jack perked up. “Are they throwing fireballs now?”
The elf’s features creased into a frown. “No… nor will they be for months yet.”
Jack sagged. “Then I’m not terribly interested. Tell me when they can fling fireballs around. I’m not too interested in anything else.”
The elf huffed. “…I will keep that in mind.”
The unsaid philistine was almost audible. Which was fine by Jack. He knew what he was and what he wasn’t.
“I also came to inform you of something odd going on.”
That didn’t sound good. “Odd how?”
“Someone is performing a spell.”
“A mana spell? Like you do? Here in the city?”
“Yes, like me, but not here in the city. It is coming from the barbarian camp.”
Jack and Ren exchanged looks. “You mean to tell me that the Instinctives are somehow performing magic?”
Elwin shook her head. “I doubt it is an ‘Instinctive’ as you call them or any kind of ki practitioner.”
“So the next most logical answer is that they’ve gotten outside help from somewhere. Foreign mercenaries or something.”
Elwin nodded. “That is the most logical conclusion, though I struggle to imagine what the creatures would have to offer in trade.”
Well, looting rights would be a step in the right direction, Jack thought, thinking of some of the smash-and-grab jobs he’d been on.
“Seems an odd choice. To come all this way only to sign up with the Instinctives.”
The elf scowled. “I would agree. The idea that any of my kinsmen would have common cause with those beasts is… repugnant. Especially one so powerful.”
“So this spell is strong then?”
“Not yet,” Elwin amended. “But from what I’m sensing… it has much room to grow.”
Ren started walking toward the stairs. “I’ll send a message to inform Magistrate of this. Hopefully this information might go some way to cooling her ire.”
Jack doubted it, but he didn’t stop the merchant.
“And I shall continue attempting to divine the purpose of this spell,” Elwin added.
As both women left, Jack found his attention returning to the ball in his hand.
One problem at a time, he thought.
---------------------
Zu’s hands were slick with blood. It seemed to coat everything, running in small streams down the hill in which she’d chosen to perform the ritual. For two days she had performed sacrifices here, and for five more would she continue. Until seven hundred and seventy seven men in the prime of life had been sacrificed.
As she watched, the corpse she had just exsanguinated was pulled away, only for another ox-kin clad in chains to be dragged before her.
None of the Grassy-Plains tribe came willingly. That was good. Their anger only fueled the ritual further.
Idly, as her claws came down upon his throat, her eyes turned to the distant sight of Ten Huo’s walls. They’d already made a number of attempts to stop what was coming. With cultivators, men and cavalry. All had sallied from the wall. All had been forced to retreat before they were swallowed by the horde.
The next series of attacks were more surprising. Strange buzzing not-birds that swooped out from the city. The first one exploded when one of the few remaining rooster-kin moved to intercept it, prompting the rest to see off the subsequent attacks with the aid of throwing spears. Since the ritual had begun, they had brought down twenty of the strange creatures.
Yet the ritual continued, a spell the likes of which this land had never seen before.
Which was good.
For all the Domesticated rebelled against the rules of nature, they were as subject to them as anyone else. Just as prey evolved to better evade the predator, the Domesticated had created walls and techniques to better fend off the Instinctive.
The wall in front of her was a prime example.
It was too thick for any ram to break it. Too tall to be easily scaled. The crystals in its base repelled any form of ki technique that attempted to enact change upon it.
It was immobile and unchanging.
And that would be its downfall.
For the laws of nature were fickle. What might be an apex predator in one food chain may yet fall victim to a lowly bottom feeder in another.
Novelty was a weapon.
And this spell was very novel indeed. Her father’s techniques were unknown to this land. It had no defense against them. Already she could feel the tendrils of her spell reaching into the foundation of the wall, slipping easily though layer after layer of ki-based defenses that did not know to categorize the foreign energy as a threat.
Like a might elephant ignorant of a parasite burrowing beneath its skin.
Ten Huo would fall. Just as the Great Wall fell.
Zu watched as another corpse was carted away.
----------------------
“Let me do it,” Lin whined from her position at the breakfast table.
As a change of pace, it was just the two of them. The others that normally joined him in the penthouse command center were busy with their own duties. Be they diplomacy, spellwork or toilet-cleaning.
As a result of the lack of prying eyes present, Lin was being more Lin than usual.
“I did.” Jack said as he cracked one of his six hard boiled eggs. “You failed.”
He didn’t need to look up to see that the goat-girl was pouting. After weeks of preparation, she’d finally got to employ her drones against the enemy. They’d been loaded with explosives and sent on a kamikaze attack against the hill the Herald was performing her… blood sacrifices on.
Because apparently the half-dragon-gorilla thing was a mage somehow?
Who knew?
…Jack preferred it when he was the only outside context problem present in a given setting.
It had gone well, for about a minute. An overgrown chicken had flown up to attack the drone, only to detonate violently.
Of course, then the natives adapted.
Spears. His drones were getting brought down by spears.
Never mind that a spear thrown by a cultivator was basically a hyper accurate ballista shot, it was downright offensive that his incredibly expensive flying robots were being taken out by a bit of wood and metal flung by literal technophobes.
Now he was down twenty drones and Lin was desperately asking to employ what precious few he had left on another doomed attack. Honestly, the girl was like a gamer desperately trying to compete a level by grinding it into oblivion.
The problem was, this wasn’t a game. They didn’t have unlimited lives. He had a strictly finite amount of resources available to him – and drones had always been a build-capacity-permitting sort of thing.
“Then let me take the big one. It can be here within the hour.”
Jack almost choked on his eggs.
“What!? No!” He slammed a massive fist into his chest trying to dislodge the blockage in his throat. “How do you even know about that? I only got the build-notification two days ago?”
And there’d been a reason he hadn’t told Lin. He’d learned not to let the innocent village girl routine fool him. He’d also learned not to let the bookish outspoken veneer fool him.
Lin was a mad scientist. Plain and simple. And a pyromaniac.
He had on good authority that the small collection of wisemen, masons, mathematicians and blacksmiths she’d cobbled together were all deathly terrified of her and her ‘experiments’.
“I have my ways,” Lin grinned.
“Well the answer is still no. Just louder.” Jack placed both hands on the table as he tried to centre himself. “That thing is a transport. An incredibly large, incredibly expensive transport. One that I built in hopes of avoiding the local wildlife by flying higher than them.”
He tapped his finger against the table. “I did not build it so you could use it as an intercontinental missile. Because I can’t just whip up another. And if it goes down and we suddenly need resupply from Jiangshi – which we will eventually – we’ll be shit out of luck.”
Naturally, Lin was utterly undeterred. “You just said it flies high. I can fly over them and bomb the camp from where they can’t reach.”
“It doesn’t have bomb bays!” Jack poked the table harder. “And even if it did, I have no guarantee that our enemy couldn’t reach it. I’m just really hoping.”
He was no engineer, but he knew those roosters weren’t using their ‘wings’ to fly. For one thing, they didn’t have any. Just more feathers on their otherwise human arms. So how did they fly? He had no fucking clue.
Just as he had no idea how the Magistrate achieved lift, because last he checked, lightning didn’t have mass.
“Then we can test it out now,” Lin pointed out.
“And risk the chance we might catch them off guard when we actually need to employ it? In its intended purpose.”
He shook his head.
“The transport is remaining as a last resort option to resupply us if shit goes south. This ‘spell’ that the Herald is casting is scary, but I already have a solution for it.”
Lin frowned. “Build a bigger gun.”
“Build a bigger gun.”
That was always the solution.