“So, how exactly are we going to meet up with those inner circle mercenaries you convinced to help us?” I ask atop Grímr’s back.

We set out as soon as Solon gave his approval of my capability. Remus, Jav, Grímr and I left without so much as a goodbye to the centzon. It’s somewhat regrettable to leave Tzilac and his kin so soon after meeting them again, but the centzon hardly need us around to support them. Assuming none of the superior Viisin get in their way, nothing can threaten them with those war machines of theirs.

Solon stayed back with the centzon, but I don’t imagine he’ll stick around for long. He made it pretty clear in the short time I was with him he plans to return to Riparia’s island as soon as he can.

Whether the riparian doesn’t enjoy being away from his home, or simply wants to avoid the war, I don’t know. Maybe one day, should I survive this mess, I’ll find him again. It would be nice if I could get him to teach me for more than a few hours, but something tells me that won’t be so easy.

Regardless, I’m thankful for what he has taught me.

I realise now that my plan to get Tore to do the fighting against Kalma was hasty at best. I’d been lucky not to have the giant kill me the instant I showed my face in New Vetus. But even with that luck, there was no plan to find Kalma. There had been an assumption that if I brought him to the battlefield, the two would find each other and fight.

Kalma isn’t self indulging, though. She would likely have just kept her distance and watched as the war brought everything down around us and let Tore flounder. It would have been nothing more than an extra source of entertainment for her.

I’m thankful Remus thought about it. Really, I should have stayed to talk to him properly.

There is no changing the past. It was the right action at the time, given what I knew. Unfortunately, it didn’t bear fruit, but we have the opportunity before us to at the very least make things difficult for Kalma. Beating her seems all but impossible, but there’s no point not trying.

“Only one of the inner circle has no method to find us on their own. We’ll head toward him. When others might join us, I don’t know, but I’m hoping he can subdue the Viisin long enough for you to tear out Kalma’s hyle.”

“Hoping?” I ask. “You don’t know?”

“Oh, don’t give me that.” Remus’ eyes roll in his head to look back at me. “The last time I saw the khirig fight was nearly a century ago.”

“Shocking, isn’t it?” Jav says. “There are actually people older than Remus.” Jav effortlessly dodges the tentacle swatting at him. “Besides, they are the inner circle for a reason. Even if their… character can be called into question, each might as well be unbeatable in battle.”

I’d love to believe that, but the ice mage clearly didn’t have an easy time against the superior Viisin. How is one supposed to fight something that doesn’t die even when its whole body is destroyed?

Though, I’m pretty sure I thought the same thing when I saw a Viisin for the first time, so it must be possible.

“So you know where to find this khirig?” we’ve been travelling south ever since we left, following the battlefield from the sky.

Thankfully, much of the fighting has entered a sort of lull. Except for the mindless Viisin throwing themselves into teams of mercenaries, there is very little combating occurring. But we’ve only flown over areas mostly untouched by superior Viisin and inner circle mercenary, so while I can hope the entire battlefield is identical, it is unlikely. There’s a good chance other places have been less fortunate.

“Nope,” Remus says. “We’re just going to keep flying until we find him. Don’t worry though, if Ankor has been in a fight, we’ll know about it.”

I’m not sure how Remus can keep his relaxed attitude even in the middle of war, but I believe him. If there’s anything the inner circle mercenaries have in common, it’s the absolute devastation they leave behind them from their battles. I assume this Ankor will be no different, so tracking him down will be no issue once we find the remnants of his battle.

Once we find his remnants. The battlefront covers an immense section of land. How long will it take to find a hint of his passage?

I wonder if I’d be able to use my new inscription to find this khirig. We’d need some inkling of his hyle to operate, and the only place we might find that is a battlefield he passed through, so it’s not like it’s all too helpful.

In no time, we pass the towering pillars of stone and reach the frozen battlefield again. There are more unfaltering paths of frost littering the landscape. The albanic mage hasn’t been holding back with her icy blasts in the time I’ve been gone. She’s nowhere in sight, and neither are either side of the battle. Whether they fled, or were killed in the crossfire, is uncertain.

I tried to support Grímr’s flight with my flames, like I used to, but we are quick to discover it interferes with the operation of the inscriptions carved into his feathers and slows us down rather than amplifying our speed as intended.

We travel for an hour beyond the icy wasteland with no sign of the mercenary we’re looking for. Nearly half of our flight passes over flooded land. A sign that one of the inner circle is a water mage. Not something I’m happy to learn.

There are a surprisingly disproportionate amount of mages amongst the mercenary elite. Is the growth potential for a mage simply that much greater than one who relies on weapons and enhancement? Or is there some other reason for the bias? It’s frustrating for me, as I know I’m far better suited to those who use physical attacks like bladed weapons and such. Those who have the power to influence the world around them are far more dangerous.

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I guess I’m lucky New Vetus prefers a warrior’s strength to a mage’s capabilities. If either the warden or the commissars had been mages, my fights against them might have gone very differently.

The sight of what I assume to be a Luis mage a thousand metres below being overwhelmed by a lesser Viisin catches my eye. Despite their ability to wield water to their will, and the vast knee deep sea of water around them, they still fail to effectively combat the decaying mermineae.

Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have had much of a problem. Unlike with warriors, there is an obvious difference of talent and intelligence between them. Sure, physical warriors can exhibit skill in the way they wield their weapons, but most of the time, the only defining factor is the amount of enhancement one has achieved.

While it is probably wrong to say the same isn’t true for a mage, Leal is an example of one that can hit far beyond what her enhancement should allow, simply because of her skill and understanding of markings. Elite mages must be the same; having reached where they are, not because of the amount of energy within them, but how effectively they wield that energy.

There are plenty of sections along the front where our defence clearly lacked any of talent, or at least suitable enhancement. The mermineae swarm through the undefended land as the lesser Viisin continue to chase down teams of mercenaries unable to fight back.

As we pass many such areas, my team plunges within a sombre air. It is clear in the way Grímr’s and Remus’ eyes linger on the hopeless mercenaries below, that they want to dive down and save each of them. Jav intentionally doesn’t look, his eyes locked on the horizon ahead.

Despite their wishes, there are far too many occurrences for us to waste time on any single one. It’s not an enjoyable circumstance, but on the off chance we can actually beat Kalma, her energy will no longer empower the mermineae.

Well, we don’t know that for sure, but it’s only one more assumption to add to the pile that needs to be fulfilled without issue for an optimal outcome to this war.

…We really are grasping at straws.

❖❖❖

Glistening flashes of light amongst a cloud of dust in the distance is the first sign that we’ve found another inner circle mercenary.

Every so often, booming cracks resound through the air, increasing in volume as we fly closer. The obscuring dust cloud covers much of the battlefield to our south. The fight likely occurring within continually spreads ash through the skies without a chance to settle.

Occasionally, bright flashes of light shine from within the dust cloud. They only appear briefly, but with how the dust blows outward at each flash, I assume something within is moving incredibly fast.

“Oh, good!” Remus cheers. “I was worried we’d have to travel all the way to Vanguard to find him.”

So this is Ankor? The elite who’s agreed to help us? I’m surprised Remus can distinguish his identity simply from those brief lights, but he’s the only one of us that’s seen him fight, so I’ll take his word for it.

As we close in on the battle, the area both Ankor and the Viisin have been becomes clear. Covering all is a thick layer of dust. It’s like an ugly grey snow over the earth. But visible beneath the dust is scarred land with craters a hundred metres wide and sharp crevices cut into the earth at odd angles.

Unlike the other damaged landscapes, the only visible effect is the damage the ground below us has received. No elemental effects to give away what type of mage Ankor might be. Unless, like Tore, he’s a physical only warrior.

Once we reach the outskirts of the dust cloud, the source of those light flashes becomes clear. Breaching the dense depths of dust, is a heavy curved blade arcing through the air around a chain leading to the centre of the ash. The weighted blade shines with inscriptions as it reaches the apex of its swing before it disappears back within the obscuring dust. A crack soon follows, the sound somewhere between the crack of a whip and grinding stone.

Within a moment of the first, another chain breaches the ash. This time, nothing more than a blunt weight is attached to the end. The weapon arcs high into the air, before jerking back out of sight and exploding into the earth. The force smashes through each of us along with a faceful of dust.

“So, I hate to be the one to ask, but how are we meant to approach?” Jav asks, and I have to share his hesitance. Those chained weapons weren’t short, by any means.

It’s clear Ankor is a weapon wielder rather than a mage, so out of the four of us, it would likely be safer for me to be the one to dive in. Though, the more I watch those glowing weapons break into view and the explosions of dust that must be the superior Viisin, my hesitance grows.

“We don’t need to approach. We only need to get his attention,” Remus says, to my relief. “Grímr, can-”

Without needing to be told, Grímr lets loose a shrill whistle loud enough that Jav has to cover his ears. It is far closer to a buzz of scraping metal than a typical bird’s call, but it does the job.

A crash, followed by clanking of chains echoing through the dust is all the warning we have before a giant of a khirig tears out of the obscuring cloud. Half a dozen weapons follow in his wake, connected to his body by thick metal-link chains. Surprisingly, none of his antlers have inscriptions or markings on them. It’s only his chains and their connected weapons that do.

Only after a few seconds of Ankor having cleared of the dust, do I realise his fleshy inner body isn’t actually any larger than the rest of his race. It is because his antlers extend so far from his body that he looks twice the normal size.

Each of his antlers grows outward, which is also not a common sight amongst the khirig. Usually, beside the antlers that make their arms and legs, they curve around to protect the head and chest in a protective cage. Ankor’s antlers grow outward in a way that would leave his chest exposed… if he didn’t fill the gap with a web of chains.

As he moves through the air, the slightest jerk of one of those antlers sends the weapons trailing behind him spinning. The movement is enough to drastically alter his trajectory, which is fortunate, as the air itself disintegrates to dust.

A clear path of the remnants of decay leads back into the dust cloud. The instantaneous disintegration of air leaves a far thinner dust than what is left of the earth, and it disperses relatively quickly, but that was clearly an attack I’ve never seen before.

The superior Viisin have new tricks. Not good.

“You took your time, Remus.” Ankor doesn’t even look our way. Instead, he swings his pendulum blade through the dust behind him. The blade momentarily clears the dust in its path, but it’s long enough for me to see it cut through the Viisin deep within. To my eyes, it looks like the blade simply passes through a mermineae shaped bundle of ash without effect. The same way a blade might pass through me.

The moment of visibility soon disappears. Dust explodes out of the Viisin in enough quantity to block sight for a good hundred metres.

“Give me a few minutes to get ready. Deal with the fodder heading east until then.”

He knows what we expect from him already. That’s good. Remus must have told him the plan before he was sent out. I need him to hold the Viisin still long enough for the inscription to lock on, otherwise I won’t be able to take Kalma’s energy.

We follow Ankor’s directions, and look east. In the distance, there is a swarm of lesser Viisin pushing through an already defeated army of mercenaries. Looks like it’s time to see just how good Grímr’s new inscriptions are in a fight.