The tide of battle had to turn here, at this very spot, or... No, Ledo wouldn't think about that, it was an awfully good way of getting yourself jinxed. It most certainly wouldn’t cross his mind, not until it happened. "Fight hard!" Ledo bellowed, making up what he lacked in eloquence with passion. The other Andronians had taken one look at his power level mid-battle and decided ‘yup, that’s our leader.’
"By Tamet, we can beat them here! We can and we must! Our people depend upon it! Fight hard!" Ledo continued to bellow in between the whole killing of people. He threw in the repetition for good measure, since the swarming Andronians may not have heard him over the sounds of battle. It almost felt like the games he watched unfold outside his workshop, if you discounted the screaming of the Trunians and the copious amounts of blood spilled. Ledo had forgotten just how noisy these things were, but like the hazy memories of the previous boozy night, bits and pieces of combat were drifting back to him now.
They had clawed their way to the gates of the Trunian camp, but entry was as elusive as an oily blaster cell. You know, slippery. First, the heavily armoured soldiers and bolt-throwers guarding the ramshackle entrance fought with the panicked enthusiasm of men staring disaster in the face and an even scarier leader behind them. Second, more soldiers kept pouring out of the camp like clowns from a circus wagon, with comparable fighting abilities. And third, the less sturdy backup sentries were also throwing bolts and steadily whittling away their shielding, making themselves a royal nuisance in the process.
The thing about shields were that it didn’t matter who threw bolts at them, there was only so much energy that they could deflect before conking out. So a solid defensive fighter could still get taken out by much inferior opposition if they had the numbers.
This also made it sound like despot ruler of unimaginable power could be destroyed by enough of his determined subjects, but that wasn’t the case. There were levels to these things, after all.
Ledo's energy-imbued hands sang through the air, thirsty for blood after years of crafting weaponry only to watch someone else use it. The man roared in testosterone-fuelled triumph. But the foe he now faced fought back with a tenacity and strength in numbers that kept Ledo at bay. First he objected to this with his blade, then with his own equally effective chops. Eventually, Ledo, like any sensible craftsman, sought an easier position to practice his rusty skills on, lest he be overwhelmed entirely by the minions before he could summon his more advanced skills against what was sure to come.
On cue, one of the noisier Trunians within the camp sounded a long, convoluted call on his own space trumpet. The remaining forces outside the walls retreated into the centre for what looked to be a final stand. Foot soldiers who had rushed to defend the gates split left and right. A loud shout of victory rose from the Andronians, who surged forward, ready to taste the sweet fruits of their blood-soaked labor. Ledo didn’t join them immediately, because he knew better.
Their joy turned out to be a premature guest at this grim party, the sort that would lie to your face about how happy he was to see you, and then you’d overhear them speaking poorly of you in the wine cellar. The bolt throwers and warriors weren't retreating in despair; they were making way for their comrades. The signal sounded once more, and this time it held a different cadence that spelt bad news. Even larger armored champions, who had been waiting with the patience of a saint or a tortoise, now charged against the Andronians with a speed that didn’t resemble the aforementioned tortoise one bit. Their dispositions also suggested that what they had planned for their enemies wasn’t very saintly either, rendering the whole analogy pointless, like an Aurox without any points on its horns.
The champions were cut from a different cloth than the standard rank and file, and it was the sort of cloth that could leave more than a nasty rash. These grizzled mercs were paid by the head, and had seen many a battle. They surged forth with an efficiency that Ledo couldn’t help but admire, fanning out and using the entire width of the area to shift the attentions of their opponents and enclose them in a pincer movement, and when they struck, it was like an avalanche. In these parts, warriors of this stature were as rare as a sober elder.
The Kilru roared out the name of their queen as if it were a magic spell rather than that of a tyrant, and charged the oncoming Andronians. Giant two-handed weapons that gleamed with a yellow fire wreaked havoc. The Andronians fought back valiantly, but their blades and appendages might as well have been toothpicks against the thick armor of the Kilru and their much higher fighting prowess and power levels. Even if they broke through the shields, their bodies weren’t Copper like the bulk of the Andronian forces. Ledo could see that now, and the Iron reinforcement meant that even the energy-imbued weapons of his allies wouldn’t work unless they had an impractical amount of time to unleash their attacks. There was nobody who could stop the Kilru now.
Except for Ledo, who with a bellow of rage at the shifting of the battle, ignited with a fire of his own and finally let his own power be fully unleashed. When he struck a Kilru mercenary between the eyes, the ponderous brute collapsed as if he had encountered an invisible wall. The man, noticing that his shield had failed, tried to free himself from the battle by crawling away, but Ledo's allies swarmed over him, their blades probing every crack and crevice in his armour. His screams were mercifully short as his defences failed entirely, and it didn’t matter what body he had underneath when enough energy bit into it.
Yet even as he perished, his comrades became more emboldened, charging forward with anger rather than diligence, along with the name of the Kilru queen Tarina, the champions called out that of Stantych to rally the shaken Trunians to their side. One of the foremost fighters let out a yell and bowled into the the Andronians like a man with a reckless disregard for his own life. Save for the fact that he didn’t appear to be losing his. Again and again, he drove his embodied form into the thickest part of the fray like he identified as glowing energy boulder. Again and again, the other Trunians followed to save him from his own folly—if folly it was, for even when he risked himself, he routed the Andronians, and crushed no small amount of his supposed allies too.
Had Ledo’s men faced off against the Kilru more frequently than the Temrit, things might have turned out differently. They could have devised a strategy for taking down their vastly superior but numerically challenged foes. But they had the Trunian army with them, who had the upper hand in every conceivable way: armor, force, the advantage of high ground, and, most crucially, they stood next to the hulking Kilru with their larger power levels. No Andronian could withstand such a combined onslaught, not even the fiercest.
True to their tempestuous nature, the Andronian horde, which had previously charged forward with all the grace of a drunken Aurox, now fled in blind panic like some sort of terrified and entirely sober Aurox. They turned their backs on the invaders, abandoning all pretense of courage, and bolted for the dubious sanctuary of the forest.
"Stand firm! Stand, you fools!" bellowed Ledo. "If you run from them, you might as well gift-wrap yourselves for the enemy and shout out ‘hello fellas, shoot me here!’" His voice was but one of many attempting to halt the stampede, but it was like trying to command the tide to retreat when a rather large wave headed your way. The Andronians fled far faster than they had charged, a blur of fear if not abject cowardice streaking away from the Trunian camp, transformed from makeshift army back into the regular villagers they had been prior to this engagement. You could train a farmer to be a makeshift warrior, but he still wanted to be alive enough to tend his crops after.
They paid the price for their folly. The Trunians laughed at the spectacle, firing bolts with deadly precision at the fleeing men like it was some kind of a carnival game. Many a brave soul from those shadowy woods who had since lost his nerve suffered the secondary and quite more pressing indignity of a fatal wound in the back as his shield sputtered to failure and marked him for attack with its flashing.
Ledo had no choice but to flee with the rest. Sure, he was powerful in his own right, but to stand alone would have been nothing short of suicidal—throwing away his life for a cause his comrades had already abandoned. Perhaps he could have taken the Kilru, but not before the Trunians overwhelmed him. So he ran, cursing fate, cursing his fellow Andronians. He was among the last to leave the field, a tiny scrap of pride he could cling to in the midst of catastrophe.
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He had almost reached the safety of the trees when his shield failed, and a bolt of energy unhelpfully struck his left calf. Cursing through clenched teeth, Ledo cast a final, scornful look at the Andronians who had fled too soon, and hobbled on. Hidden from the now-enraged enemy, he paused to survey the damage. His Jade body had held up much better than the Coppers that had followed him into battle, so he pushed through the pain instead, hobbling until his legs gave way on the uneven ground, before submitting to his own rather less fatal indignity of using a blade as a makeshift cane like some feeble old man. He would have carried on without it, determined to press forward on one leg if necessary. But the cane made moving somewhat easier, and he needed to put some distance between himself and potential hunters.
Just so long as Tycho didn’t see him do this, he could live it down.
"Home," he muttered, as if some hidden foe had the nerve to question his destination. In a sense, they had. The Trunians had tried their best to make him join the ranks of the dead warriors strewn about the battlefield that was his former home. They had tried, and they had failed. He was alive, while more than a few of them lay cold and still at his hands. A pyrrhic victory of sorts that he had to cling to in order to ward off the indignity of defeat
By and large, his planet had lost the battle against the invaders entirely. But Ledo, with the obstinate bull-headedness of a man who refuses to accept defeat, believed his own struggle to be a kind of accomplishment.
In his heart, he knew that he couldn’t be the one to lead them to triumph, and with Tycho now old and long-retired, who among them could stand against the coming invasion?
He had a bad feeling that the answer wouldn’t please him.
***
Ominous music played, as General Stantych rode up, watching the soldiers as they continued their grim obligation of dispatching the few living that remained. The thrill of victory had brought a rare flush to the commander's usually pale cheeks, making his eyes sparkle. For some reason this made him seem even more dangerous."Well done, men," he said. "Anyone you kill now is one less to worry about later!"
Grenal, Linon, and Sergeant Odont nodded in unison, because they valued both their lives and careers. "Yes, sir," murmured Odont for good measure, not knowing whether to laugh or not and erring on the side of caution. The sight of the cheerful Stantych was unsettling; the general had always despised his soldiers. Victory, however, had apparently worked wonders on his disposition. The Sergeant didn’t know what was more disturbing, the overt cheeriness or his more familiar overt cruelty.
"We will conquer this land and make it our own," Stantych declared to the planet at large, as if it would answer him and oblige. "Dropships will come and settle here, prospering for generations. We will set up another outpost, and it will be their epicentre and will grow into a city that far eclipses the likes of New Titania and rivals the other great cities of the Empire."
That sounded promising to Linon. Unfortunately one question still nagged at him, and with a sense of self-preservation that probably made the Andronian corpses wince, he decided to voice it: "What about the Andronians, my lord?"
Odont hissed through his teeth in alarm, while Grenal grimaced before pretending he hadn’t lest Stantych notice and cheerfully decapitate him. But the General’s cheerfulness was as impenetrable as his armor to impertinent questions, and decapitation, while another way to certainly put someone’s mind far away, was not on the Gerneral’s mind at present. "What of the Andronians, my good friend?" he repeated with the patience of someone explaining a simple truth to a child. "We have crushed their barbarous horde." His sweeping gesture took in the corpse-strewn outpost; he seemed blissfully unaware that many of the bodies were his own countrymen. Continuing with a grandeur that could only be described as diabolically theatrical, he proclaimed, "Now we will subdue their lairs and force them into obedience. Every Andronian, man and woman, boy and little girl"—his voice lingered lovingly on the last few words to ensure that everyone knew he was evil—"will bend the knee to the might of the Emperor!"
From what Linon had heard and seen, the wild folk of the north bowed the knee to no one. He wanted to voice his thoughts; he was as blunt as any Trunian. The memory of Odont’s earlier reaction made him hesitate, and General Stantych rode away before he could speak.
"By Martos, the slaughter’s gone to his head like strong spirits," Grenal said quietly. "You’d hardly know he was the grumpy old goat who dragged us here."
"He didn’t put a bolt through the boy’s chest," the sergeant agreed, jerking his thumb at Linon. "Or pop his head off. If that doesn’t prove he’s in a good mood, I don’t know what does."
"Do you think keeping the Andronians at bay will be as easy as he says?" asked Grenal.
Odont spat on the blood-soaked ground. "That was for the Andronians," he said. "I can tell you this much: we have a better chance now that we’ve crushed the manhood of three of the four remaining settlements. What choice do they have but to submit? There’s barely any of them left, if our scanners are correct."
Linon paused to search a dead man. He stood, muttering to himself and shaking his head. "I found nothing worth keeping. The poorest Temrit carries more credits than these dogs."
"What do we want with them then?" Grenal wondered aloud. He had searched corpses too, finding little of value save for a strangely crafted storage device on a chain around the neck of a fallen combatant. It was more a keepsake of the battle than a treasure, but there was always the off chance it contained useful data. Or horribly incriminating videos.
"They are here. They are on our doorstep, and they cannot be redeemed. They do not listen to reason, and the god they worship is a strange one. If we do not defeat them, they will multiply, perhaps even pose a threat to the empire itself in the decades to come if left unchecked," said Odont. "Better that we fight them, better that we beat them, on their own miserable planet."
"Well, that sounds about right," said Grenal. The sergeant’s words made perfect sense to him. He strode across the field, looking for more Andronians to dispatch. Carrion birds had already begun to settle on bodies that were undoubtedly dead, and were having an animated discussion with those few who weren’t. “After all, it only takes one man from a desolate backwater like this to make a difference.”
Odont groaned. He knew all too well that such proclamations were guaranteed to summon forth a hero.
***
His name was Denor, and he was clumsy. Not the sort of clumsy where you occasionally trip over your own feet—no, Denor had refined clumsiness into an art form. Some would even say he was a prodigy, but they weren’t being kind. In this case the word meant an outstanding example of a particular quality, and nobody could argue against him being the embodiment of clumsiness.
As previously mentioned, on this particular day, Denor was stumbling down a hill. The hill in question was tall, steep, and covered in a thick layer of snow, which was currently trying its best to swallow Denor whole. It wasn’t so much a heroic descent as it was an impromptu snow-diving lesson, with Denor playing the role of the unfortunate snowball that starts an avalanche.
Well, he almost got the part, but the tumbling head of the shaman was slightly more spherical and won the role, proving that our hero even managed to fail in his comparative analogies.
To Denor’s credit, it was also a truly prodigious amount of clumsiness that had led to his possession of the head, so at least he had that going for him.
The problem, however, was that shortly after exiting the ravine, the shaman's head had immediately decided it had better places to be and started rolling down the hill, away from Denor’s grasp. And so, Denor had done the only thing a hero in his situation could do: he’d thrown himself down the hill after it.
The head, which was as stubborn as it was deceased, kept rolling faster and faster, with Denor tumbling behind it in a flurry of flailing arms, legs, and muffled yelps. Occasionally, he managed to snatch at the head, only to find himself grabbing handfuls of snow or an errant branch, which seemed to have developed a mind of its own and was determined to fit in with the rest of the more vicious wildlife by attempting to attack Denor.
To the casual observer—and there were none, as the only creatures foolish enough to venture into the icy wasteland were Denor, the shaman's head, and possibly Rodrik with the freed captives—this would have looked less like a chase and more like a very one-sided snowball fight, with Denor playing the losing part.
As the head neared the bottom of the hill, where a particularly deep snowdrift lay waiting like a patient predator, Denor made one final, desperate lunge. His hands met the snow, and for a moment, it seemed he had finally captured his prize.
But fate, as it so often did around Denor, had other plans. The snowdrift, possibly offended by Denor’s sudden intrusion, swallowed him whole. There was a brief, muffled cry of surprise, followed by a soft sinking as the snow settled.
For a few moments, all was still. Then, slowly, the shaman’s head popped out of the snow, followed by Denor’s hand, which triumphantly grabbed it. The rest of Denor followed shortly after, looking very much like some kind of abominable snow beast that had fallen on hard times.
“Gotcha,” Denor said, shaking snow out of his ears. The shaman’s head, which was not in a position to argue, said nothing. It didn’t want Denor thinking it had become his companion.
Denor clambered to his feet, holding the head aloft like a trophy. “I told you,” he said proudly to it, “I’m a hero.”
The shaman’s head may have had reservations about this assertion, but didn’t voice them on account of being quite dead.
He slipped twice, tripped three times, and at one point, nearly lost the shaman’s head to a particularly enthusiastic gust of wind.
But in the end, Denor made it back to the top of the hill, where he stood victorious, snow-covered, and completely unaware of everything that had happened in this chapter.