26th of Locus

Blood and Gravel

VII

"They did not yet know that the siege had only barely begun. The second siege in Calamon's long history, and the first one to occur while the Etherians were away..."

There was a wall of mist beyond the black path which they walked. Rain trickled down their shining armors. It was slower, gentler than the downpour some days earlier. The sky had started to lighten as they'd left the vicinity of Calamon, made it back to the space between the southern Calamity and the northern, Alisan Calamity.

Visibility was poor, but Vorez’s men were at least competent at traversing the muck and weathering its elements. They'd been mostly unabated, save for the stragglers who’d fallen to disease, who had to be carried back on stretchers… or left to die.

“We'll leave them in Archea, that big city…” Vorez had said. They'd be able to recuperate there, with enough soldiers stationed to dissuade a counterattack by the once-already ransacked citizens of the place. He could see the city's highest walls over the pointed trees for a time, before the rain and mist became overbearing in the distance. And then he kept his eyes down on the mud.

The clattering of armor kept on. There was no silence, save for when they'd stop to rest for a few hours every night. But the sound of a few thousand men marching is a recognizable sound indeed. It was a sound he would hear in his eardrums for decades to come — however many he had left.

...It was so overbearing that he didn't hear the sel soldier emerge from the mist ahead, nor the gaggle of steel-clad soldiers behind him.

Vorez whistled a sharp note, the soldiers stopped in a wave around him. He waved his hand through the mist. “Oy! Who's commanding you? We've received no word back from the Capillary, we're returning home!”

But his breath caught in his throat when he saw the frey woman marching alongside the army. The woman whose fins rose up like a glistening crown atop her blue head.

Vorez fell to a knee. He stammered, “Lady Aeo, my utmost apologies! The situation has changed — you've received my letter…?”

Her soldiers stopped like somber statues behind her. Her lone figure slid out of the mist like a shade. Like a banshee.

“You were supposed to wait for orders, Vorez. What you've done is no less than treason.”

“Wait–”

It was too late; an oversized figure, an azar clad in the dark steel of an alisan war-executioner, dropped his axe down like a lumberer splitting a log. It caught tight in the sinews of Vorez’ thick neck. He pushed and pulled like a carpenter, blood spraying where sawdust should have been.

Then the blonde head fell into the mud with a damp plop. His body stayed frozen for a moment before it slid and collapsed beside his own head.

“Turn yourselves around, you fuckers!” Aeo screamed at the army facing her. “Unless you're hoping for a similar fate!”

The southern soldiers, the sel and Orphans and Alisars all, stomped their boots. They shouted in unison. They all knew the price for disobedience, now and forever.

Lezat, hiding somewhere in that crowd of faces, obscured by friend and foe and mist and rain, muttered softly to himself: “We're all going to fucking die…”

X

The blackness of the world came into light when the arrows first hit. It was hard to see for sel, impossible for humans. But when those arrows ignited against their furs, against the canvas tents, and against the skins of the soldiers resting before their full retreat...

The world became bright again. Like fireflies, dancing on the chill night air. Tiana could hardly see her breath before her face, but she knew it was there when she saw the steam rise from those burning arrows.

And then they lit more arrows all around her. The sullen faces of the Hunter Executioner-squads were revealed in those dim lights. Black armor. Gold trims. They wordlessly unleashed their arrows. They wordlessly commanded the deaths of those dozens resting there.

Then crunching grass grew louder and louder, closer and closer. Tiana clutched her sword tighter. Even with the spell in mind, it was impossible to summon flame to the blade.

"LEFT! FRONT! SHIIIIIELDS!"

A crash of steel against splintering wood. An azar's face broke through the darkness for just a moment, snarling and screaming as a spear ripped into the sinews and muscles beneath his skin, turned his gray fur red. And then the face vanished.

Tiana released her held breath.

"Scared?" asked Copper, stood at her side. Even he wore the black-gold helm of the squad over his curly orange hair. His mace dangled loosely by his side.

"Not fucking scared. I've killed before." she shouted in her thick accent.

"Then get in there." he said, shoving her in the back.

"I'll fucking kill you for that. Keep your hands off of me, smooth."

Tyverius touched her gently on the opposite shoulder. She hesitated to repel his grasp, but soon jerked away to press through to the front of the crowd.

"ARCHERS, RIGHT! TARGET THE FLAMES, THE..."

There was a resounding crack that ripped through the chittering night air. Like a wooden ship rocking, like a tree collapsing, like an exca kicking off into the wind.

Tiana’s stomach sank. The voices of the soldiers died down for what felt like an eternity… then grew again into devastating screams.

“Catapults!”

“CATAPULTS!”

“TAKE COVER!”

“TAKE…!”

THOOOOOOOOOM…

X

When Tiana opened her eyes there was only blackness. She couldn’t even tell that her eyes had opened. Then she looked up, squinted as hard as she could at the dim, blurry stars in the obstructed night sky. She felt the grass in her hands, wriggled her fingertips through the individual blades. Then she clamped the dirt.

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Her breathing was heavy. She was covered in feverish sweat, her whole body ached.

When she tried to sit up she wailed out in pain, reached for her leg… But there was only a stump there, and a bloody tourniquet to match.

“Aaagh!” Tiana hissed, punched the ground. She clenched her teeth hard.

A torch lit in the darkness nearby and she jumped, reached for a sword that was no longer with her. A smell of sulfur hit the air.

There was an azarian woman there; one of the big ones who wore leather only over their personal areas — better for their charge. The azarian women were much more akin to giant direwolves than humanoids at all, but this one sat up, and this one looked human in the dim torchlight. Almost human. The protruding muzzle and pointed ears covered in her gray fur told a different story.

“Who are you?” Tiana hissed in her brutalist tone, trying her best to fight through the pain.

The big cat grumbled something in another tongue, looked up to the stars, then turned back to Tiana. Her eyes shifted from yellow jewels to red. “I am Reliza, Moonchild.”

Tiana paused before her next question. It was important not to look too informed, nor too dull. She didn’t want to be tortured for answers she didn’t have, nor did she want to be executed for being useless. Her next question had to be carefully, carefully measured.

“What happened to my leg? And where am I, is this your camp?”

The direwolf woman looked to the pale tent behind her, turned back to Tiana with a look that said are you fucking serious?

“Tch,” Tiana growled, “so what the fuck happened? I’m not dead yet, are you going to kill me?”

Reliza lifted her eyebrows. “Kill you? Oh, oh, I see. You’re not from the Alisan side, are you?”

Fuck!

The direwolf smiled. “I won’t tell.”

And she handed her bowl out to Tiana.

Tiana struggled forward, fell backward to her spot once she’d got it in her hands. She spooned whatever salty slop it was into her mouth. She was damn hungry, that was a fact. Damn hungry, damn hurt… damn confused.

“So, you know my truth. Then what of my comrades? They all dead?”

The wolf began to stand up, torch in hand. Her eyes flashed again back to yellow. “They will be.”

Reliza dropped the torch into the grass, fell onto all four of her extremities, her bulging form was at once made completely obvious. More beast than humanoid, and so they were enslaved by the men, turned into war dogs without morals or ideals.

"Wait! You're just going to fucking leave me here? Fucking kill me and get it over with!"

The beast turned back with a snarl, "So long, Moonchild..."

Reliza was wholly a carnivorous, salivating animal as soon as their conversation had ended, bolted off like a horse that’d had too much sugar.

Then went the pack, sprinting through the woods, each completely invisible to Tiana, who could only hear their brutal stomping rush toward the south, toward the remnants of her corps.

“Fuuuuuuck!” Tiana growled again, gripped hard into the ground in a futile attempt to drag herself up. She pulled herself to the base of a tree, desperately clawed the bark, pulled and pulled until she was at a knee. Her nails splintered and broke. The pain grew exponentially with every desperate move. Her whole body ached, her vacant leg throbbed and itched, felt like a thousand burns all over a limb that no longer existed. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Fuck!” she decried again, struck the tree with a hammer fist. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

…That sort of language is unbecoming of a lady, said the stomping.

She turned left, then right.

“Who the fuck said that?”

…You won’t find me in your gaze, whispered the trees.

She looked up.

You won’t see me with those eyes, hissed the grass.

“Where the fuck are you?”

I’m inside of you, Tiana, my dear, said her soul, and the creaking in her bones.

She clutched at her body, pulled at her leather kit, fell backward in a struggle against herself.

And then her body began to move on its own. She convulsed and writhed, screamed and gasped in horrific terror. “No, no! Etherian fuck! Release me, I am your master!”

One so weak as yourself is master to none, my girl, my poor, innocent girl… said her lips, vibrating beyond her control.

“You… I know you…” Her eyes began to blacken.

Say my name, and grasp my power, said the missing leg beneath her, reformed in a dark shroud.

“You're… Al… Gi… Rak…”

She winced and gagged. Her face forced itself into a grim smirk. Her lips said, against her will, “Right you are…!”

And she staggered off into the beckoning battlefield, a black sword formed to her hand…

X

Copper and Tyverius panted as they managed to force the gate shut, dozens of soldiers pressed up against them on every side.

Copper shoved through carelessly once they’d secured the wall. Tyverius apologetically chased after him.

“Where’s Tiana?” asked the slit-eared elf.

Copper shrugged. He slung his mace over his shoulder.

“We can’t leave her out there, can we? Won’t Cedric be—”

Copper grabbed Tyverius’ collar. “Cedric picked us because of our survivability. If she dies, she wasn’t good enough to join our ranks. If she lives, that's proof that she's fit to be a Knight.”

Tyverius glared above his mouth-concealing mask. He said nothing, waited for Copper to release him, then stormed off toward the gate again.

“Let me through,” he said. “One of us is still out there. Let me…”

But he turned his head. His eyes caught a glimmer down one of the lantern-lit alleyways. His mouth fell open within his mask.

There stood a man. He was speaking to a civilian. One moment, all was well, the civilian was smiling, the soldier was laughing.

Then the civilian touched the soldier’s shoulder. Horror befell the man’s face. His body began to disintegrate.

Tyverius felt his hilt in his hand. He gripped it tight, yanked the sword hard from its scabbard. He could barely hear his own voice, it felt like a nightmare: “Copper… Copper!”

The civilian’s eyes met Tyverius’. Green leaves began to grow from Tyverius’ back.

Copper turned his attention, readied his mace.

And the civilian moved at unthinkable speed, closed the gap between himself and Tyverius.

There was a long moment where Tyverius could only hear his heartbeat, stare into the blue-bleeding eyes of the man. Sharp jawed, black-haired, done up in dark kit…

The man smiled. “Hello, Sie’uel. It’s been a while.”

And the demon that was Sie’uel responded with violent growth, sprung leaves in every direction to form a defensive perimeter, launched them back with the thrust of a tree trunk from below.

And Tyverius knew throughout his soul the name of the man, the name of the horrible daemon before him.

That daemon was none other…

…Than Tartys the Calamity himself…