The first month of his second year as Junk Dog was a miserable one. Not due to any failures on the part of his leadership – he thought he was doing reasonably well – but simply because the weather was just awful. Pus-laden drizzle fell constantly, just thin enough that nobody could justify completely hunkering down and waiting it out. The wet season was always terrible, but this year’s was truly unpleasant, constant rainfall fouling machinery and weakening men’s resolve.
He looked up. The sky was lightless, the drifting sparks made absent as the Rotting Sun’s power waxed. He supposed it must be angrier than usual, for whatever reason.
But if he discounted acts of God, the Clan of Junk Dog had seen a great many successes, not just this month but the entire preceding year. He was particularly proud of the forces engaging Horrible Swamp; they had ground themselves against that superior foe, hardening into true warriors as the battles dragged on. That front would be a long and bloody one, as neither side held a decisive advantage; even after all the tempering they had gone through, the warriors of Junk Dog remained weaker man-for-man, but retained the advantage in numbers and equipment. Stinger-Tail and the Jonns had performed quite well, though everyone remained wary of The Hag taking the field.
Yes, the conflict in the west was far and away the most successful; a bloody crucible that was continuing to concentrate strength into the warriors that survived. The army’s size might have been cut in half, but in terms of power it was nearly doubled from where it began.
Conversely, the south-eastern front had lost decisively when the leader of Clan Dragon Eater had slain Dies Twice in single combat. Some whispered that his death had been a plot on Junk Dog’s part, but he had been just as surprised as anyone when the army slinked back, defeated. A tactical error on my part. I saw our branch of the cult as just a smaller, weaker analog to the Prime Movers. I didn’t take into account how unbloodied they were. Dies Twice had been strong, but his inexperience with true live-or-die battles meant his ability to gauge the strength of his enemies was lacking. He dove head-first into a fight against someone he considered an equal, but Worm-Eats-the-Sky proved too vicious by far.
But even that was not a complete loss. The small rumblings of dissent within the cult were scoured out by the death of his strongest detractor. And the survivors are harder, now. In time they would send another army to visit Dragon Eater, one better suited to the task.
And as for the final conflict in the north…
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Luos the Tall watched from high above, as the might of their combined clans weathered the Junk Dog’s assault. The great transports had opened up while still advancing, the tops peeling back to disgorge swarms of flyers both fleshly and mechanical. Some floated by the aid of crackling telekinetic energy, while others did so using hovercraft pieces built into their bodies. Still others were rocketing forward, literally, leaving trails of spent propellant in their wake.
Stupid. Has Junk Dog’s brain gone soft? This was exactly the wrong troop composition to bring here. Because while they might bypass the Metal Tooth warriors…
The Lightning brothers weaved a storm, throwing it out with the aid of their subordinates. The Junk Dog forces were enveloped in heavy winds and lightning, the combined power of Tall Mountain slamming them around, dashing them against the earth and frying them to cinders.
…That will happen. Did they really not know we would work together? It was the only possibility he could imagine. I suppose in the span of old Junk Dog’s life, fifty years must seem like nothing at all.
Wind and lightning continued to batter the enemy. The forces on the ground crawled forward, but those in the air were decimated, and with every passing second Junk Dog was losing more warriors. And moving his gaze lower, he confirmed that the alliance had yet to take a single casualty. I can’t even feel satisfied about winning. It’s like they’re trying to lose.
Perplexed, he cast his senses out to the maximum. Did they even have any leaders present? There are some mildly powerful figures on the ground, but nothing special. In the air… Complete dregs. He snorted. We’ve been facing stronger warriors in their raids. Are they cleaning house?
Then, his senses found something strange. Not on the battlefield, but far above… Why can’t I feel the cloudscape?
“Would you like to know a Secret?” Luos startled as a booming voice came from directly above his head. You dare strike me from above, in my domain? All the skies of Tall Mountain belonged to him. He flexed his power, shaping a bolt to meet the obscene shape diving at him-
“A Cloud Floats in the Air.” The Secret distracted him for a moment, but he shook it off in time to dodge. The enemy, a man twisted into a whale-like form under the weight of his own Comprehension, struck the ground where he had been standing. The stone mountaintop cracked, and he manifested a windstorm to leap clear of the collapsing section.
He bared his teeth. “Warboss of Junk Dog. You face Luos the Tall; state your name, so I might tell tales of your folly for a thousand years.” I’ll need to deal with this quickly, so I have time to stop the avalanche before it hits the back row of our troops.
The man smiled – or at least Luos thought it was a smile; the man’s features were strange, stretched over a form with no distinction between head and body. “Did you not like that one? Here, have another:” Luos braced himself and flung lightning, but the radiant tines melted into the man’s body without burning him. A fellow sky-eater! “A Cloud is Very Heavy.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
That one hobbled him not at all. “I already knew that!” Clouds were monstrously heavy, how else would a cyclone tear flesh from bone? Lift heavy boulders into the air? Ahh, there we go. I just needed to change perspective. My thanks! He used wind-power to lift the still-falling chunks of stone, flinging them at his enemy.
The warrior retaliated with his own wind, but some shards made it through to cut into him. “Hmm, most people do.” Blood spurted from his wounds, coming from his mouth as he spoke. The man was large, but it seemed he was mostly hot air. “But most don’t think of the implications. If a cloud can float, and a cloud is very heavy… Then Weight Doesn’t Exist.”
Luos cut through the Secret with a flex of his power, but he was merely a secondary target.
Reality blinked, considered it… Then shrugged and bowed to the crooked logic.
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The war against the alliance had been decided in a single battle. It was somewhat disconcerting, another tactical blunder on his part. I don’t know if the Mechanicals and Sky-Touchers disobeyed the spirit of my orders willingly, or if they merely failed to hear my obvious intent. Either way, we gained little.
The Exalted Wail-Blow had extracted a wealth of land and material benefits from the two clans, in exchange for sparing them complete destruction. Something Junk Dog valued little, if at all. They were meant to gather strength, but instead they removed the enemy from the board efficiently and with few casualties on either side. Neither our warriors or theirs grew much at all. With the Sky-Touchers unravelling any weather-based techniques, the Mechanicals and Psychokinetics had been free to crush the melee-focussed Metal Tooth clansmen effortlessly. Eidolon had seen this immediately, and surrendered.
If it was indeed insubordination, Junk Dog could only smile and acknowledge their victory. Somehow they obeyed my orders to the letter, without getting me any of what I actually wanted. And if it had been ignorance… Well, it wasn’t as though he could punish success, could he?
Junk Dog continued looking up. Pus irritated his eyes, but he was long used to it; the Prime Movers lived under the sky, always on the move. Rain was the least of what he had learned to deal with. Next time, I will do better. Pair the Exalted with someone more bloodthirsty, not overestimate my Grandmasters. Even if he had not crossed off his every objective, things had still moved forward. Junk Dog was growing, tempering itself. Struggling Towards Supremacy.
Any setbacks were merely an excuse to improve one’s self.
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A sword swung down, cutting the air. Then another and another, all in a line as her students practiced.
Stingy was giddy. When she had suggested teaching a generation her sword arts, the leadership of the Great Tomb Cult had been sceptical. “You are only a child yourself,” they had said, “How much of the art could you possibly know?”
But a demonstration, and Cobo vouching for her, had convinced them enough to hand her some sharpies they had picked up. And all of mother's lessons on leadership, even the ones that she had half-slept through or only listened to out of duty and love, suddenly came in handy.
Most of the sharpies survived to pupate, and within three months she was a prominent figure in the cult. Not a grandmaster or Warboss, the cult didn’t structure itself that way, but still someone to be respected.
Then her second molt had come through, properly unlike her first, and suddenly she was the strongest warrior in the area.
“Gibby! Don’t slack!” At the sound of her voice, the man swung twice as hard. “Barby, good energy, but pace yourself!”
Being in charge is a lot of work! She had known that from watching mother, but she hadn’t known it, you know? Her swordsmen continued training until she called an end to the exercise, some of them more exhausted than others. She marked the best in her mind as potentially ready to move up to the advanced class. “Okay, break for twelve, then we’ll do spars!”
After her classes, Stingy retreated to her quarters. Even now, with nearly half her life spent aboveground, she still preferred to have something solid above her head. As such, she had taken a room in the spacious mausoleum that gave the cult its name. There were shrines and altars to Oldest Bones dotted everywhere, and she gave a bow to the one next to her doorway as she entered. “Glory to the inevitable,” she mumbled.
Tonight, like many nights, she had a visitor. Cobo was slumped in a chair, napping.
Poke, poke. The man stirred only slightly, so she moved to heavier measures. She breathed in, then… “COBO!” His entire body jerked, his eyes flying open in a panic as he exclaimed.
“Gah! Stingy, don’t do that!”
She giggled. “Then don’t fall asleep in my room!” She poked him again. “You came here to train again?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“Nope!” She unsheathed her swords – she had three of them now, one for each hand and one held in her tail. That’s the one people should beware! Hah! She waited patiently for Cobo to wake up all the way, and get into a proper stance.
It was a bit sloppy; he was a lot better with a gun than a sword. But he wanted to learn, so she taught him. The fight began and… Sigh. He’s really not good at all. Or at least, compared to someone like Grampy. He probably could have taken a few of the normal cultists back home. Her body moved almost entirely on instinct, which let her mind wander.
Her third molt would be the last one, where she gained her true adult body. Technically, she could trigger it anytime she chose, but… She didn’t feel quite ready, yet. Once she was an adult, she would start producing sharpies, and that would change the logistics of her journey a lot.
Sure, she wanted to birth an army and consume the world and all that… But not yet! And not starting here, in the Great Tomb. This place was kind of weak. She thought about it more as they sparred, and eventually Cobo got too tired to keep going.
He panted, hand playing over his side where her sword had nipped him. “I’ll- hah- get good enough to cut you one of these days.”
She smiled, flashing teeth like daggers; she wore a strip of cloth over her eyes, which left her mouth exposed. It was very daring! “Hmm… Nope!” He wasn’t even to the point where he could have beaten her before her first molt. After two, she was basically invincible! “Anyway, I’ve been thinking…” He cocked his head, silently urging her to continue. “I’m not really feeling the Great Tomb Cult. It’s better than the swamp, but I don’t wanna live here. You think we could try somewhere else?”
He sniffed. “Your students?” She shrugged. Eh. They’ll be fine without me. “Well, I do have some ideas…” He looked thoughtful.
He turned away, stepping over to a trunk and rooting around. When he came back, he had a map in his hands. It was dusty, and no doubt out of date, but she had picked up enough about the surroundings she should be able to fill in the blanks. “Were you thinking of anywhere in particular?”
“Hmm…” She took the map, pouring over it for a minute. I don’t want to go back north. South is another weak clan. West or east? West was closer to the ocean, and east further away. Finally, she looked up. “I’ve never eaten dragon before. Let’s go east!”