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Weight of Worlds
Chapter 440 - Space Bends

Chapter 440 - Space Bends

Dovar knelt on the hard flagstone of the school’s entryway, his tether-sense extended carefully. Roaming the grounds, he felt the slight fluctuations of mana. Obsidian, ice, and light were predominant, though others were making their mark as well. Stranger ones, typings he wasn’t used to. Stone and air drawn through the bridge to Korfyi and Belnavir.

Beyond those idle patterns and twists, he could find nothing suspicious or out of sorts. Even a year ago, he wouldn’t have even noted the natural twists of mana. Yet, he now understood the incredible complex depth of the tether-sense, soul-sight. Kasos, Ranvir, and Amalia could read these patterns, or something very like them, track them to events months or even years old.

It seemed impossible to him, yet Ranvir knew more about Saleema’s behavior and doings during her rampage four years ago than he did. Ranvir wasn’t the one who’d been in the city during it.

He really could’ve used a bridge to Elusria City right about now. It would’ve made things so much easier. So much safer. You work with what you’ve been given. Ranvir didn’t see fit to equip us with such a tool, so we work without it.

Thuds of soft-soled boots landed on the frost-hardened grassy soil in front of the school. Pashar stood before Dovar, incongruent with his empty senses. Yet, this was as suspected of a spy. Straightening as she approached, he towered over her even as she climbed the steps to the door.

“What did you find?”

She pursed her lips. “Four- maybe five-hundred lightly armored soldiers. Three dozen tethered. Thirteen masters, the rest second-stage. They are arrayed in a loose camp outside the ritual’s warning perimeter.”

“They know about it, then.” Small chance they wouldn’t have. Many of their soldiers and tethered had managed a retreat from their previous assault on the school. Yet Kirs had upped the perimeter and they’d still avoided it. “A larger force this time.”

“I believe they mean to eradicate us,” she said, walking with him back through the halls to the student’s lounge. The furniture had been cleared except for a few utilitarian stools along the walls for resting. At the center, a vast table had been set out with a currently incorrect map of their surroundings. Estimates sketched by Dovar and the Sleeping Sons’ Captain Tulaiha, before she returned to her unit.

Throughout the room, Dovar’s meager force was arranged. Ten students and the current faculty. Ayvir, Kasos, Pashar, Esmund, Kirs, and himself. Amalia had left with those unwilling to fight, bringing them to the orphanage. If the Purists wanted to invade Korfyi, they were free to make that mistake.

Sixteen tethered and a dozen soldiers borrowed from the Sleeping Sons infantry. Well-trained but untethered. Each tethered out manned three-to-one, each soldier forty-to-one. Unreasonable odds.

It was plain on the other’s faces that they understood as well what was happening. The tight-lipped look of the veteran soldiers as Pashar outlined the attacking force. It was a number to even make the war-eager Elusrian blanch.

“Why are they just waiting? They don’t know we’ve spotted them. Why would they ruin their surprise like this?” Kirs asked.

“They are moving using space-generators and rituals,” Pashar said. “That’s how they bypassed the Sleeping Son’s checks. How they got here so fast. But those rituals aren’t exactly quiet. They would’ve had to stop days, if not weeks, out to avoid our notice. Then they have to hide from the locals, despite their carts and wagons of supplies.”

“Previously, they got here by moving in small forces, and with relatively few people,” Dovar filled in, seeing the question forming on Es’ face.

“That still doesn’t explain why they are still waiting, though,” Kirs said.

Pashar nodded. “They have gathered space-generators around a ritual. I believe they’re awaiting a final package or delivery. This ritual is bigger than the others, so it’s probably some vital supply they didn’t want to transport through Elusria.”

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“Or didn’t want to be transported,” Ayvir said, reaching down to tap the general area of their forces. “They’ve tried this before. It didn’t work out too well. Even if Ranvir isn’t here, they still have to be accounting for him.” He made eye-contact with Dovar, those smoldering red orbs seeming an omen for their shared thoughts.

“Triplet Master,” Kirs whispered, clutching her husband. Es looked pale, but his jaw was set and his eyes flared into a rainbow of dancing colors.

“For now,” Dovar said. “We buy time. Fight in choke-points, the narrowest halls, and dark rooms.” He turned to the soldiers. “You know this building. It can be a warren of obsidian hallways. Strike to wound, then run away. You never move without tethered with you.”

A rush flared in Dovar’s soul-sight. Behind him, a flare of dense spatial mana dispersed into the air, absorbing nearly instantly, yet rippling all other patterns. “He’s here. First stations.” He took Kirs gently by the arm. “On my mark.”

She nodded, pale-faced and wide-eyed, but steady. She’d let go of Es, who’d taken off, yet her hands shook not an inch. Her breathing was deep and steady. Dovar ran after the rest of Ranvir’s people, toward the entry.

A sound like shattering glass reached them, just as Dovar reached the entry. Their soldiers stood two before the door, men behind with bows. Ayvir stood on the left of the doorway, Dovar joining at the right. The rest of the soldiers had paired up and been joined by a pair of tethered. They would soon roam the unlit halls of the school.

For now, everyone waited.

Sweat dripped down the side of Dovar’s face, gathering at his nape and between his shoulder blades. Belts had been tightened painfully around his chest, turning every breath into a battle heaving against the constraints. He wasn’t alone. Each soldier, even Ayvir, stood similarly tense, fingers flexing over the swords.

For now, he and Ayvir would stay out of it. Brutally slaughtering the common men opened yourself up to attacks, while turning the survivors into vicious beasts. Turning the fight from necessity and duty to revenge and hate.

Figures emerged on the horizon. Tiny men glimmering with the occasional shine of bronze plates. Their weapons out, shimmering in suspended lights, they loped toward the building.

Four-hundred soldiers were a puny army, yet neither the Elusrian nor Ankirians could retrieve muster more than a couple thousand at most. The front lines didn’t care that the countries were in turmoil, and so the front liners cared not for their countrymen’s political goal.

Removing too much of the effort would only involve Ankiria’s rival nations, Sankur and Vargish. Which no one wanted. The army appeared so small as they ran. Four-hundred men in light armor. A single unit on the tactician’s table at the academy held five-hundred. Above them, men and women floated on elements closing at the same speed as their soldiers.

A few slabs of stone and ice flew toward them, striking the edifice of the school. The projectiles shattered against the reinforced stone, raining down razor-like blades of obsidian and crunchy shards of really cold water.

At three-hundred yards, the two bowmen stepped forward and readied their puny arrows. This would do little, but it was the opening salvo they could afford at the moment. Step out of the school and risk getting trapped by bored tethered.

At two-hundred yards, their bows thrummed regularly, flying into the central knot of soldiers. They were aligning into a wedge to push into the school itself. Their shields caught most of the arrows, but Dovar thought he saw a few fall over.

He gathered air within his fist, a strain of mana twisted by an intrinsic connection to his Concept and Foundation. A few senses locked on him, but he sent the blast of wind backward. It traveled farther than he could control, yet it had more than enough strength for its purpose.

Through the narrow hall a gust of wind rushed through propped open doors and across a small candle set up right outside the lounge-turned war room. The flame snuffed out and…

Kirs activated the ritual they’d been preparing for so long. The ground shook as massive twists of earth and stone shifted and boiled before them. In moments, the browning, lightly dusted with white grass plains, turned brown, gray, and black with upturned soil, rock, and ground down obsidian.

Even if the tethered could’ve combated the mudslides and rock formations, the incredible amount of mana behind the working would’ve fought them. Steadying himself with a hand against the wall, Dovar heard the snap of shutters opening on the floors above them.

The snap of bowstrings tripled, the surprised yells of soldiers turned to cries of pain. Perhaps this would lead to a frenzy among the Ankirians. Maybe it wouldn’t. In time, they would be fine, except for a few unfortunates. Almost no deaths from the ritual. Dovar could argue semantics, but the alternative was likely death.

More volleys were released, before the shutters snapped shut and a wave of space mana moved through the building.

“Disperse!” Dovar called, taking his soldier and archer with him. Ayvir, running the opposite direction, did the same. Two turns later found Dovar’s tethered counterpart, a young Korfiyan woman.

“It’s really happening, isn’t it?”

In the dark, Dovar couldn’t tell if it was anxiety or excitement that strained her voice.

“Keep your head on straight,” the archer warned, dropping his bow and strapping on a sword.

“Space bends around us,” she whispered. “We cannot lose.”